teb@stat.Berkeley.EDU (Thomas E. Billings) (04/17/91)
TO SLEEP SO AS TO DREAM
A film review by Thomas E. Billings
Copyright 1991 Thomas E. Billings
Synopsis:
In 1950s Japan, the daughter of an aging silent film actress is
kidnapped. A young detective is hired to find and return the kidnapped
young woman; the trail leads to the (Japanese subsidiary of) M. Pathe &
Co., where the woman is trapped in a 1915 silent film! A (nearly)
silent film that interweaves reality and dreams so skillfully that they
are indistinguishable. A challenging but worthwhile film.
Japan (English subtitles), black-and-white, 1986, 81 minutes.
Director/Writer: Kaizo Hayashi
This film is a tribute to Japanese silent films, particularly the
films made in the final phase of the silent film industry. The story
concerns an aging silent film actress, who hires a young private
detective to find and return her daughter, Bellflower, who has
reportedly been kidnapped and is being held for ransom. The detective
is a strange fellow, who sits around eating hard-boiled eggs in huge
quantities while he analyzes the ransom demand (delivered via tape
recording), to hopefully find and return Bellflower.
The detective and his young assistant follow a long maze of clues
to find Bellflower, only to eventually learn that she is trapped in a
1915 silent film from M. Pathe & Co., that has no ending! From here
the story continues, with reality, magic and dreams intermingling so
seam- lessly that it becomes impossible to determine what is reality,
and what is a dream.
In the synopsis, I describe the film as "challenging but
worthwhile", for a number of reasons. First, the film is completely
silent except for some sound effects, the taped messages from the
kidnappers, and a brief narration in one scene provided by a benshi, a
person who was hired by Japanese theaters in the silent days to read the
dialog to the audience. The challenge here is that modern audiences are
used to sound, and may find the silent medium less interesting.
Another challenge for some is the slow way the story builds. At
the screening, 3 or 4 people (from a rather small audience) walked out
before the film even reached the midpoint (~40 minutes). This may have
been due, in part, to the slow pace of plot development. However, there
are rewards for patience, because the pace of the film increases just
after the midpoint, and the film becomes very interesting.
The film accomplishes something that is not very common in cinema:
the interleaving of (relative) reality and fantasy within a single story
line in such a way that it is difficult to tell where the fantasy ends
and reality begins. Other films where this is done include THE PEDDLER,
an Iranian film I reviewed some months ago, and the last parts of BRAZIL
(also TOTAL RECALL, if you consider the controversy over whether the
adventures really happened, or were just a dream).
I recommend the film to fans of silent films, and to those
interested in a film that blends reality and dreams.
Print Source: New Yorker Films.
Reviewer contact: teb@stat.Berkeley.EDU