Un Homme Qui Dort

1974's UN HOMME QUI DORT (THE MAN WHO SLEEPS) was quite an experience for me.  An uncomfortably relevant bit of existentialism.  That it maintained nearly eighty minutes of interest was quite remarkable.  Even moreso that it never felt pretentious or overplayed its (thematically) heavy hand.  It's somewhat difficult to describe, and much harder to express how lonely it made me feel.  This is the intention, of course.

Like other reviewers, I felt that this film was mirroring my own life in numerous ways.  The associated feelings of isolation, ennui, alienation.  It is presented here in ways that made it feel as real as my own breath. Georges Perec's novel is certainly in my future.  His adapted screenplay follows a twenty-something (Jacques Spieser) around Paris, though mostly in his tiny, drab flat.  He does very little, aside from the essentials of making coffee and washing his socks.  He usually has a book open in his lap but he does not absorb the words.  A female narrator, heard for almost the entire running time, informs us he has taken leave of his studies...and any human contact beyond an accidental brush on the Metro.  He only speaks the most necessary words, but never an "excuse me" or "thank you."  Eventually, he'll say nothing at all.  Time will pass and become increasingly meaningless.

Ludmila Mikael's voice, coupled with director Bernard Queysanne's commanding visuals, creates a hypnosis that carries it past any concerns with repetition, and that charge would be silly anyway.  It's almost as if the narrator is creating a melancholy rap, a longform poem of despair.  It is presumed that the words come from the internal diary of the young man (or is it an omniscient deity?) with increasing recognizance of his apathy and neutrality.  All too aware of the existence of the living dead.  The film comes closest to realizing the thoughts of those like Camus as any I've seen.  Mesmerizing.

The score by Philippe Drogoz and Eugenie Kuffler is perfection.  Eerie and anxious, nicely modulated. As UN HOMME QUI MORT moved towards it perhaps cathartic final third, I realized that I had been this man at different stages of my youth.  Not quite as cut off.   Unlike this subject, the words and music and food in my days were savored by me.  I've had periods of solitude that were blissful, and happy as anything I've known.  I didn't remain there.  The man of the title may not even desire such a journey, but the choice may not ultimately be his.