The Man Who Sleeps
Director: Bernard Queysanne
Year Released: 1974
Rating: 3.0
A student (Jacques Spiesser) goes about his daily routine - waking up, smoking, reading, going to class, roaming around Paris - but feels numb, as if he's going through an existential crisis while a female voice (Ludmila Mikaël) 'narrates' in second person ("You enter a cinema," "You go to a cafe," "You go back to your room"). The sense of alienation is apparent and it has a kind of hypnotic effect to it (those vacant streets!) - the intent, I think, is to shake the viewer out of his/her 'numb' state and to encourage him/her to actively contemplate how he/she is living his/her own life and whether it's to the fullest (your solitude is not helping). Viewer appreciation will undoubtedly vary - some may find it too 'obvious,' some could argue it's material better suited for the page (Georges Perec adapted his own novel) - but I think it's a unique curio piece. At least the lead's socks are clean ... even if his soul is not.
