Indifference has neither beginning nor end: it is an immutable state, an unshakeable inertia.
Un Homme Qui Dort (translates to A Man Who Sleeps) is a French art-house film directed by two men named Bernard Queysanne and Georges Perec. The film follows a student who seems to be suffering from depression and a strong apathy which seems to be the result of his alienation from society. The film is narrated through a female voice, most likely the characthers conscience, who acts as a guide and as the vividly explaining poetic prose of the film. The voice is constantly there, colorizing the experience and interpretations of the emotions that the character is feeling all throughout the film which leaves the viewer with a lot to take in.
I saw this movie described as "the film-equivalent to drone" which is what initally piqued my interest for Un Homme Qui Dort, and while I understand the comparison to a certain extent, both being slow, drawn out and uneventful, relying on atmosphere and outside elements to create a certain state of trance for the viewer, I find that the focus of this film isn't supposed to be as inactive as something like Coil's Time Machines can be.
Un Homme Qui Dort is instead quite vivid and eventful, with the constant narration being what really makes the movie and the interpretations of it interesting. It's a film that's occassionally beautiful but that visually doesn't add that much to the experience. It often works better with only the appearance of the narration, almost as an audio book, and I can't help but believe that it's a narration that would have worked much better as a novel, seeing to how that make the story flow better and allow for more time to interpret and take in what's being constantly spewed out.
The film often reminded me of Jean Paul Sartre's La Nauséa for its slow tempo, the cynicism and alienation of the main characther and the almost nihilistic view of the world that becomes more apparent the closer we get to the end of the film. It's a character that almost feels Dostoevskian for its spite against humans, its perceived superiority to a majority of the living world, a character that I feel has been done to death and who's edgy nihilism makes it hard to actually take the character seriously.
This is most likely my main issue with the film, aswell as how I don't think that film is a good way to interpret the story being told. The narrator is a fine idea and without a doubt executed very well but I don't find that viewing the character's card games played in solitude or his different ramblings around the streets of Paris add a lot to the depth of the film and mainly exist as a layer that just has to be there.
It doesn't evolve on the visual aspect until close to the end when we see more from the character's own point of view which is drenched in a bright light that distorts the faces of the people on the streets as the character dives through a huge crowd of people, their eyes faced in a sort of disgust towards himself as the narrator explicitly describes the monster's that people are.
Maybe this was just a bit too deep for me but it's yet again the same issue that I had with La Nauséa when I read it, I find it hard to relate to the character at hand for his nihilistic view of life and the cynicism that drowns out a majority of the story, swallowing everything and taking it to the level of the mind of a 13-year old who's just discovered Nietzche.
Anton Öberg Sysojev
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