A surprise film
Depression in films could not be more accurately shown than in the French film Un homme qui dort. From the very beginning the narrator utters
Your alarm clock goes off, you do not stir, you remain in your bed,you close your eyes again. It is not a premeditated action, or rather it’s not an action at all, but an absence of action……
I knew I would enjoy this film. There are many other words that I can relate to very well.
the feeling of your existence, the impression of belonging to or being in the world, is starting to slip away from you.
Your past, your present, and your future merge into one: they are now just the heaviness of your limbs…..
As the minutes, hours, days, weeks, months have dragged on without a realistic hope of finding work, the above sinks straight into my being. I have not climbed as anywhere as low into depression as the films single character has which is also why I can recommend this film to anyone regardless of mental state.
The short camera shots where we see a old man with a walking stick sitting on a bench opposite the main character and the tone of the sole actor walking through the Champs-Élysées and other notably places in Paris are executed flawlessly in black and white film.