‘Sleepless' REVIEW: Unapologetically beautiful
‘Sleepless' REVIEW: Unapologetically beautiful
Gem (Glaiza de Castro) and Barry (Dominic Roco) decides to skate together at night. Taken from IMDB.
There's too many people, too many conversations happening all at once.
The endless chatter that almost always surrounds us is an all too familiar echo, leaving our ears empty-handed in every place we go. Every person, every moment that passes by, carries a story that will only be known by a few, marking a beautifully fleeting collapse that clings only in a split-second chance. In Sleepless, two weary insomniacs try to juggle their way in preserving each other's kept time and snippets of stories—or better yet, their dulled sanity—during a time when the world's clamor comes to a halt. It results in one of the most authentically realized romantic comedies the Filipino movie industry has seen in a while.
Long before the neon-radiant aquariums of the bittersweet Isa Pa, with Feelings and the much-quoted trappings of Ngayon Kaya, Prime Cruz started his career with a very quiet 2011 film, one that deviates from the typical blueprint of what's supposed to click with the Filipino audience when it comes to love stories. Sleepless is brutally honest. It is undeniably slow in its presentation, however it never intends to please the audience with convenient popcorn but instead reels them straight into its heart. It knows how to let the performances and scenes breathe and speak for itself, powerfully evocative and loud in its entirety.
The night is young to worry. Taken from IMDB.
Rom-coms, as a genre, cater to those longing for love, but this film celebrates the ravishing stillness of simply yearning to have an assuring embrace. Sleepless finds its sustained friction between two call center workmates who barely sleep at night, Gem (Glaiza de Castro) and Barry (Dominic Roco), as they discover that there's yet another similarity—both are in pursuit of confronting their personal struggles and draining loneliness. The two find solace, or perhaps create it, over a commonplace convenience store or by creating hypothetical stories on how to survive a zombie apocalypse. The levity shown within these moments is never diverting; rather, it adjuncts the underlying drama that also forgot to ease its eyes.
Gem and Barry's companionship develops as more of their walls fall off and as more of their broken selves reveal their fragment. They have many thoughts about what to bring if a zombie were to chase them, but they also have many scars to show, which is evident in their droopy eyes as their lips blabber constantly about the most trivial of things. Every segment of the build up never feels excessive and forced; they all play an important part in making us believe in their affecting bond that hints not at traditional romance but at simply being a shoulder to cry on while everyone else is asleep.
Sleepless paints the city as not just a mere background to look at, it's a symbolic mirroring of the main cast's ever-fluctuating certainty. With BP Valenzuela's song 'Steady' from her LP fittingly named Neon Hour, the sprawling isolation becomes somewhat wondrous in its own way. However, Gem and Barry's lives are anything but steady; nevertheless, they managed to fall on each other's backs at the right time and tried to endure life together with eyes wide open, never wanting to dream of escaping again.
The two find comfort at the top of the building. Taken from IMDB.
Their bond, often shared in companionable silence over a steaming cup of noodles, spoke more loudly than the constant noise that surrounds them every day.
It's not sleep. It's a gentle hug of restful warmth.
Some say that the film's conclusion is so anticlimactic and static but I argue that it hammers down the point that the best stories leave you hanging with an air of yearning to know and understand more, much like how both of our protagonists desired to be there for each other, to be of company, devoid of expectations or judgment.
With this impressively structured debut film, it is clear that Prime Cruz devoted thorough care to every subtle foreground, lighthearted conversation, and visual symbolism without being overly on the nose about it. He respects the audience enough to show them that a talk may pack more punch than a last scene chase and a kiss on a cheek. Sleepless is a superbly done movie that is applaudable for its confidence and intimacy that brought unashamed pride in the essence of independent directors striving to spark new grounds of artistic perspective.
There's too much mediocrity in the industry, too much crowd pleasing profit machines.
But for once, I'm happy to assure you that Sleepless is surely not one of them.
Sleepless is screened in Gateway Cineplex 18 as part of EnlighTEN: The IdeaFirst Film Festival. Read more details about the festival here.
