Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: SLEEP [Fantastic Fest 2023 - Austin, Texas]
The notion of trust can take on many different forms. Especially in an intimate situation, the context of sleep means knowing that the person next to you will be there to protect you. Those simply idiosyncrasies are perhaps a leftover from childhood and some perennial phobia. "Sleep", directed by Jason Wu, explores these possibilities within the confines of a apartment, seemingly a safe space between a working actor and his wife. Lee Sun-kyun (seen in two other FF entries: "Killing Romance" and "Project Silence") has his most subtle entry here with a kind of Jekyll & Hyde efficiency that bears any offset (and may even likely be inside someone else's mind). Jung Yu-mi plays his new wife with a newborn on the way with concerns as certain actions in the night become more disturbing, though seemingly committed unaware in the consciousness of her husband.
The inherent backdrop has a possible supernatural context with certain ticks and actions becoming more visceral as time goes on. The swinging of the pendulum and what might become a bigger problem as far as what the characters are capable of is nicely balanced. There is a terror in the fact of a two-hander where neither one of the lead characters knows which way is up and nothing can be determined. There are time shifts which try to be more dynamic than they actually are but discombobulate consequences in how they happen. However one action seems particularly brutal but forgiveness in ignorance can be a double edged sword. Jung begins to see the inherent trust melting away but Lee's character chocks it up to recent hormones or lack of sleep though he knows there is something wrong with him undeniably. The inherent possibilities of the carnage moving farther along is planted further in the audience's head moving forward to a specific intersection. The color palette also shifts to indicate that something might truly be off. The pay off is more subtle than slash but it brings to bear that things are not always as they seems and the best laid approaches sometimes can backfire. The key aspect of "Sleep" is the fact that nothing is wrong until the evil decides it wants to reveal itself simply in the service of its own ego. B
By Tim Wassberg
