Sleep Always (2002)

Sleep Always (Canada, 2002) 81 min color DIR: Rick Palidwor, Mitch Perkins. SCR: Rick Palidwor. CAST: Fred Spek, Laurie Maher, Ed Fielding.

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Shot in Super Duper 8 (a process by which the entire emulsion of a Super 8 film frame is used, including the area reserved for the optical soundtrack, resulting in a widescreen image), this impressive psychodrama features Frank Spek, as Frank, a woodworker by day and saxophonist by night, who becomes infatuated with a mysterious homeless girl, who sneaks into his apartment building at night. At the forbiddance of everyone else, he attempts to rescue her from the street.

Incredibly, directors-cinematographers Rick Palidwor and Mitch Perkins manage to make an engaging eighty-minute film just with this slight premise, as story is forsaken for an arresting movie experience where the narrative is broken, and the line between reality and fantasy is blurred.  This jumble of time, space and dream logic perfectly accentuates the discordant world into which Frank is thrown, because of his strange fascination with this woman.

But still, this movie wouldn’t work were it not for the casting. The doe-eyed, angular featured Laurie Maher is perfectly cast as the enigmatic Nada. Her name symbolically means “nothing” in Spanish, but also “hope” in Russian; the nothing represents the background from which she came, and perhaps the “hope” is the promise that her presence will bring to fulfillment in Frank’s life. (“You don’t look like a street person; you’re kind of attractive.”)  Frank Spek also properly captures our protagonist, who is also a bit of a goofball: his 1963 Greenwich Village beatnik goatee lends his character a bit of buffoonery- he is a well-meaning screw-up whose good intentions are blind to the well of danger and despair he ultimately immerses himself into, and thereby alienates himself from his social circle. The late Ed Fielding does good work too as his neighbour, whose visage often appears in Frank’s dreams, representing the status quo who warns him of his desire.

I love the metaphor of how Frank takes it upon himself to constantly sweep the hallway: he is attempting to restore order in his world, yet he also freely lets the bad elements in, which effect his life.

The Super 8 grain perfectly enhances the downtown bohemian lifestyle of Frank’s world, and adds a suitably woozy, obscure feel to the dream sequences. Not only is it a feast for the eyes, but it is a banquet for the ears, as the sound design is simply brilliant. The songs (ranging from jazz to rock) and brooding synthesizer throbs add a superb texture of atmosphere and danger to the drama. The “Memories of You” song, played over the final credits, consisting of a melancholy voice with the sole accompaniment of a guitar, stabs through the darkness, and chills one to the bone. I couldn’t get it out of my mind for days. Soundtrack album, please?

There is also a touch of melancholy in that the film’s technology is perhaps now a thing of the past- a memory reflected in the same melancholic mood as that final song over the credits. Less than a decade after this film is released, this process already seems close to extinct. A pity, as even the aesthetic of this small gauge has an alluring texture that is lost in the too-perfect world of digital video. Although the movie was reviewed on DVD, I would have loved to have seen it projected back in the day.   This film is available for purchase at the filmmakers’ website. (www.friendlyfirefilms.com)

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Originally published in Vol. #1, Issue #24.