Sleep Furiously
Director: Gideon Koppel
Cert: U
Time: 1hr 34mins
This fly on the wall documentary of a Welsh farming community will not be to everyone’s taste. It is gentle, slow paced and there is little in the way of a story line. However such is the inventiveness of the photography that one can only marvel at how director Gideon Koppel has created such a thing of beauty from the seemingly mundane.
His camera takes us into the life of the mobile librarian as he does his weekly round, the local populace as they meet to discuss the impending closure of the village school, the lives of farmers as they tend to their stock and the local choir as they practice for a forthcoming competition. This last cameo, set as it is to the dramatic imagery of shafts of sunlight breaking through a foreboding layer of cloud, is one of the most moving four minutes of cinema I have ever seen.
What music there is, is sparse, yet entirely appropriate and there is no narration. The result is to give the viewer the space to draw their own conclusions. A complete delight.
Rating: 4/5
Patrons: 10
CA
