Film review: Sleep furiously

Published on Thursday 28 May 2009 19:02

SLEEP FURIOUSLY (U) **** DIRECTED BY: GIDEON KOPPEL

IN THIS astonishing, gorgeously crafted and surprisingly absorbing film – one of the stand-outs from last year's Edinburgh International Film Festival – first-time film-maker Gideon Koppel delivers a dreamy and heartbreaking portrait of a Welsh farming community edging into decline. Quietly observing the inhabitants of the sleepy hamlet of Trefeurig, the film builds a poetic picture not only of what stands to be lost through thoughtless modernisation, but how rapidly whole ways of life are being eroded. Intensely atmospheric (aided in no small way by the Aphex Twin soundtrack), it is reminiscent of tre et Avoir in its unobtrusive style and the recent Modern Life in its subject matter and setting, but it's more experimental than either in its deployment of different film stocks and time signatures to emphasis its themes.

The insertion of a simple, text-based cry-from-the-heart near the end reveals, perhaps, Koppel's noble intention in making the film. "It's only when I see the end of things," it states, "that I find the courage to speak. The courage, but not the words." That's where the power of cinema comes in. Herding sheep, hanging out washing, trips to the mobile library – Koppel finds ways to turn simple things such as these into images that resonate with quiet power.