Review of I Don't Want to Sleep Alone (2006) by Todd J — 08 Jun 2008

If you thought Syndromes and a Century was a slow and ponderous flick, you might want to think twice before checking out the other award-winner from the New Crowned Hope commission, I Don't Want to Sleep Alone.

Aesthetically, it and Syndromes have quite a bit in common. Characters seem to simply exist in front of the camera for very long takes without a whole lot of narrative advancement. However, I think that might be where the similarities end.

The film concerns itself with lower class dwellers in Kuala Lumpur. It splits mostly into two narratives, one of a man who takes in a homeless guy passed out on the streets and another about a young woman and her mother's problem of taking care of a paralyzed man (her father?).

Both narratives advance at a snail's pace, preferring instead to focus on the character's interactions in the every day. This strategy pays off for the most part, but the draggy pace might turn off people who don't have the patience for a narrative that will spend 10 minutes chronicling a night in which the guys' bed turns out to be flea-ridden.

Things also get a bit complicated near the end of the film when the drama takes off a bit, especially in one disturbing scene in which the paralyzed man's sexual needs are addressed. This scene's handled well, but the brooding pace makes a late threat of real violence seem a bit out of left field.

All in all though, the realism in relationships retains that sense of verisimilitude that makes the flick so viable anyway. I'm sure repeated viewings would offer even more insight into the small quirks that make such complicated portraits of urban life so compelling.

And heck, if you're bored by the rather tame and slow narrative, you can always revel in director Tsai Ming-Liang's mise en scene, the great environmental hazard in the 3rd act, or the simple idea of how even the most selfless relationship can become possessive when there's little else to grab onto.

The film gets extra points for a truly jaw-dropping final shot that sums up everything that comes before it in one simple image. **** out've *****.