User Reviews

This criminally underrated 1974 film easily ranks among the likes of "Pickpocket", "Breathless" and "The 400 Blows" as among the greatest films in french cinema. This film chronicles a young man who has dropped from his studies and is trying to distance himself from the world around, but starts finding it increasingly hard.

Shot in black and white, the film feels like a new wave film with it's raw, low budget cinematography, having a grainy and gritty look that punctuates the intense, somber mood of the film. Scenes in darkened areas are reminiscent of noir films in their use of shadow, and the editing is generally quick, sometimes with a musical flow. In addition to the imagery, the story is conveyed through a second person female narrator (second person meaning the narrator is always referring to "you", such as "you do or don't get up"). Interestingly, whenever the situation becomes more anxious and desperate, the narrator's normally flat tone starts to become more panicked, or angry. So while the film may seem initially as just a woman talking about something this man is doing, in reality it does have a, albeit abstract, character arc.

Although at times trying on the patience, this film's style ultimately pays off, creating a completely unique and engrossing experience. The slow, subtle deteoration of the main character's mental state spills into your mind. I was rarely bored while watching, thanks to the powerful imagery and raw, minimalist atmosphere. The detachment our lead is trying to create is perfectly conveyed. The film recreates the tedium and a sort of numb pain, the depravity, desperation and entrapment this attempted lifestyle leads to.

If you want a more traditional narrative, certainly look elsewhere. If what you've read here and in other reviews sounds interesting, than this is probably the film for you.

Famous French writer Georges Pérec was always interested in cinema. He notably took part in Alain Corneau's thriller "Série Noire" (1979) five years after this adaptation of his own novel. Shot by Bernard Quesyanne and awarded with the Jean Vigo prize, the filmmaker found an adequate cinematographic language to capture the somewhat desolate spirit of the novel.

A student who's about to end his studies decides overnight to stay completely indifferent to the world that surrounds him. It's a silent, black & white movie only enhanced by a woman voice over which introduces the young hero to the audience and comments from his own standpoint his actions. Although we don't know the reasons of his retirement from the world, we learn many things of his lifestyle: his bedroom, his wage, his eating habits, his wandering all over Paris etc... It's interesting to note down the mellow voice-over of the woman that gradually gets worried and angered. Indeed, our student is at first completely silent and indifferent but then anxiety, fear overcome here. Is it really possible to stay indifferent like that during a lifetime? Is there a possible exit?

This film could be a cousin of Alain Jessua's debut film "La Vie A L'Envers" (1964) in which a man stops to comply to the routine of everyday life. Such is also the case here. Only the voice-over enables the audience to penetrate the empty soul of this young man and to try to decipher his thoughts although as I previously said his motivations to refrain from social life remain blurred. Through him, Pérec wanted to express his view on French society but in a neutral way. He was always interested in it and showcased it in several of his books especially "La Vie: Mode D'Emploi" (1978). Given the anguished tone adopted by the voice in the second half of the film, the writer probably feels fear towards the banality and the mundane character of everyday life that offers no exits. Perhaps that's what our main hero tries to do: to stay in silence to try to discover another world. But it is bound to fail. So what to do?

Jacques Spiesser is perfectly directed and his expressionless faces capture the nothingness he voluntarily creates all around him. He is at the center of an arty film which tries and succeed to depict the humdrum common life that can verge towards absurdity.

Un Homme Qui Dort is a must-see if you're into experimental cinema, or if you're interested in films about mental health issues. The nameless protagonist, who never speaks, battles against his antagonists: his own depression, anxiety, and despair. A female voice-over expressively and poetically narrates his internal struggles and his aimless nocturnal peregrinations through Paris. At times his solitude seems like a higher state, but eventually it becomes an intolerable prison. Towards the end, it seems the anti-hero's battles take on a political dimension, reflecting the perspectives of post-May '68 Situationist concepts: if capitalism is alienating, how can any sensitive person respond except by becoming alienated? While the film works well, and has an effective dynamic arc, it's kind of amazing the creators were able to extend this well-constrained etude to a duration of 1 hour 17 minutes. Not a fun or joyful film, but a powerful one, and one I'm glad to have watched.

Just watched my whole life. Emptiness of the existence, the pain of existential crisis and the most painful things living, will and idea as Schopenhauer said. "Living painless" is the most painful thing, ironic, but this is the truth.

Ah, my own incapable existence... You are becoming numb when you don't think about the mean of existence and when you don't feel the pain of BEING. HUMAN BEING.

You want to be as usual but you can't, something's gonna stop you, you don't want to read books, you don't want to think, you're just gonna walk without thinking about anything.

Here, a truly great fusion of french cinema and existential meditation. Surely a modern classic ? A tonic for any modern young adult in the throws of angst or severe doubt and questioning about the world. A rite of passage i have observed in many a friend in my own life.

French cinema is in the habit of not letting you down. It thankfully goes all the way when it comes to philosophical comment. It's discourses articulating the feelings you long to, no need, must hear from the world.

Somewhere in the vaults there it sits underplayed. Play this film. So modest, so slight, so grave. The uplifting chant of a culture that knows how to speak. Perec the writer and director, a national treasure for a good reason.

Can anyone imagine a film with a young student,his room and some pigeons ? This is a film which is going to take your breath away. Of course, it cannot be termed as boring. "Un homme qui dort" is surely not for people who guzzle endless quantities of coke, munch umpteen packets of popcorn while watching what they prefer to call "movies". For me personally it was an rewarding visual experience as there are various breath taking images in this film. The black and white photography dates back to 1974 when this film was made. It is true that during those times color films were made. But this film was filmed in black and white in order to heighten the atmosphere related to monotony,dullness. Yeah, for those who have studied French language and literature: This film is based on a book written by Georges Perec. He even collaborated on this film's scenario. A good news for all those who hunt for rare, hard to find videos. This film is available in France with English subtitles.

Perhaps cinema's final word on loneliness, aimlessness, and withdrawal, strikingly filmed in black and white. You may love it or hate it, but you probably have never seen anything like it (or Paris like this) before. *** out of 4.

Quite a task making it through. But the ripples and ebbs and flows are well structured. Life can be tedious but this pushes it to the walls. It is a well done experimental film that focuses on a young college student who lives in a claustrophobic little room and does the same things, day after day. A rather monotoned female narrator drones on, although, when things are at their worst, she ups the emotion .Existential French cinema that was entirely new to me.

If you like movies that are so abstract, have long monologues with endless second-person narratives this is definitely worth your time.

This is a great example of Nouvelle Vague. The whole film is done in voiceover narration (in second person - very unusual!) The character is the pure essence of his generation, lost after the Algerian War, the Vietnam War, the events of May '68 His world is growing emptiness. His most persistent action is the rejection of action per se and the world around. This is pure existentialism. This is what lies underneath our everyday communication, our boring jobs, cheap relationships, our rat races. This is life as it is. What I particularly love is the surreal cinematography, imagery and poetic narration. And the film has at least three paintings by René Magritte Perfect!

The man who sleeps is a film from a lonely heart that will let the most lonely person like me love this self observation film.

I reach a point in my that I woke up and just want to experience life, not by sadness but by happiness, and when I stopped everything that bugs me, I found myself alone, and I don't want to return to my sad routine (like if I am in prison in society). I just have myself and deep movies to teach me about life, feel with my pain by a film releasing them and talking and solving them, and when I want to feel happy it make me happy, feeling everything in films, and shows me arts, to see how much life can be beautiful.

But this film is release of everything and every thought I've got in my head in my hole life, it's sad, but it's life at it's most reality. We all want happiness but all that is given to us is sadness, but we will still pursue happiness, and you told me that is this the hole life? I tell you I don't know, because we all try to figure out life, but no one can understand life. So we all have our subjective points of view and we listen to each other to try to emerge them together, but we will never understand life, and we will never appreciate life until we lose it.

Words cannot describe how absolutely genius and philosophically outstanding this film is, and the extreme effect and impression it had on me. A feast to the eye and with a script that is a magnificent essay on the existential subject, extremely detailed, wordly livefull and very intelligent. I don't know what words to use or how to formulate myself, that could do this film justice. But I'll try to write down at least concisely what the movie is about for my own sake in the future. The movie masterfully portrays the destructiveness in isolation, motivating the power and freedom in solitude, but explaining alienation as a confusion, and a darkness in which one immediately got lost and goes astray.

Un Homme Qui Dort is a mesmerizing existentialist trip across different states of mind, with an unusual narrative: only a voice-over speaking out the realizations of the ever-silent, intriguing main character, a student in Paris, who wakes up one day to realize the meaningless of life, and starts discovering the liberation of indifference.

Un Homme Qui Dort is one of the most original, thought-provoking films I've seen in a long time. It effectively portrays an existential crisis, solitude, depression and anxiety, but also peace of mind, using hypnotic, poetic images of 1970s Paris, shot in atmospheric black and white, and accompanied by a haunting soundtrack.

A hidden gem.

This movie is a long existential essay about a man who lives (without living) in his small book-ridden apartment. The man walks (without walking) in the bustling streets of Paris looking (without looking) from a bird's eye view at people/places/alleyways/museums/benches/trees while occasionally smoking (without smoking).

It's unlike everything I watched. A deeply relaxing movie, slightly disturbing, but overall a good experience.

Some people say that poetry is boring. I'd like to say that poetry is how people talk to themselves in the head alone.

And this film is poetry.

"It is on a day like this one, a little later, a little earlier, that you discover, without surprise, that something is wrong, that you don't know how to live and that you never will. Something has broken."

The Man Who Sleeps (1974) is one of the most outstanding moody existential films, I have ever seen. A very minimalist cathartic and exhausting piece of film-making. Our main character (who is succinctly referred to as "The Man") is a dead ringer for Ina Curtis. The Man Who Sleeps would serve as an uncompromising glimpse into emptiness and nothingness desolate 1970's Paris. The dialogue is only spoken by a female narrator, in the second person, describing the pain and experiences of the main character. The dialogue is deeply poetic and challenging, the speed of the delivery of the dialogue by the narrator, would speed up when the sole protagonist was anxious.

It is certainly a unique and challenging experience as our protagonist battles depression, anxiety, and despair through his surroundings. For all intents and purposes, it is essentially a long existential essay, beautifully shot, camera exquisitely showing a harsh and cold environment in Paris. Don't be fooled by the runtime of 77 minutes! You are unlikely to ever see an emotionally stirring and thought-provoking piece as this. Our main character (who is succinctly referred to as "The Man") is a dead ringer for Ina Curtis. For me, The Man Who Sleeps, is the quintessential film about alienation and hopelessness.

If you like movies that are so abstract, have long monologues with endless second-person narratives literally from start to end, language that full of existential terms and questions, with no real human acting, have an unlimited supply of repetitions, and boring, this film will please you the most. This movie can be understood as the essence of some other movies' hidden messages, but rather all said very clearly.

Black and white imagery, an extremely deliberate soundtrack defined mostly by narration, definite but very light plot, and artful shots of very banal places and things: 'Un homme qui dort is' 100% an art film. Those are two very off-putting words for any viewers who aren't already receptive to the type of picture this represents, and I can understand the reticence. For those ready to take in whatever comes their way, however, this is honestly kind of brilliant.

I'm not familiar with the novel that writer Georges Perec himself has adapted for this feature, but I can only assume it's a fine translation into a different medium - and I say without hesitation that its cinematic representation is wonderful. Perec and co-director Bernard Queysanne turn the most ordinary details of a flat or city into found art, while editors Andrée Davanture and Agnès Molinard demonstrate their skill with weirdly riveting sequencing that turns that same mundanity into jolting phantasmagoria. There's swell nuance in the countenance of Jacques Spiesser as the unnamed protagonist, the only person the camera meaningfully focuses on - and still more in the marvelous voicework of Ludmila Mikaël, narrating the very personal yet very universal journey of our "hero" with range and subtlety that's frankly mesmerizing. Why, she's almost more the "star" of this movie than Spiesser is, with a welcome fluidity of speech and channeled energy that makes early monotony all the more draining, the surprisingly dynamic climax invigorating and nigh thrilling - and the denouement, the calm after the storm, peaceful and restorative.

All this, in a picture that from start to finish is almost literally nothing more than the tracing of a person's inner reflections on himself, the world around him, and his place in it. 'Un homme qui dort' is both simple and complex, quiet and turbulent, blase and thoughtful as a meditation on depression, existential despair, detachment, and modern life. One need not have ever set foot in Paris, tasted Nescafe, or lived one moment discretely similar to the what the protagonist has to keenly feel and know every thought and feeling that Spiesser and Mikaël express. The experience of the film is both singular and universal - much like how the title will not find favor with all viewers, yet it's a production that is about, and made for, everyone. There is a magnificent poetry in the words Perec has given Mikaël to imbue with such vibrancy, and if the same is any less true of the imagery before us, it's only because visual art (especially of commonplace lower-case nouns) is more subjectively difficult to pair with lofty, esoteric language and descriptors. The excellent, pointed original score composed by Philippe Drogoz with Eugénie Kuffler - all but absent for a long stretch, before slowly but absolutely growing in import - helps to cement those more abstract notions with stimulating notes, but of course the fact remains that any movie-goer who isn't attuned to the particular style of film-making this represents are perhaps best served by seeking their amusement elsewhere.

When all is said and done, despite its broad representation of ourselves and the intent thereof, 'Un homme qui dort' is a selection for a niche audience. It's more meaningful and emotionally impactful than I could have possibly guessed when I sat to watch it, and therefore satisfying and rewarding - but viscerally thrilling entertainment this is not. Still, there's dazzling artistry on hand, and while this production distills examination of subject matter that has filled countless volumes over many centuries into a mere 77 minutes, it never, ever feels overfull, self-indulgent, or pretentious. The more I think on it after the last image has faded from the screen, ultimately I'm unsure how I can call 'Un homme qui dort' anything other than "masterful." It won't appeal to all, but if there's even a sliver of a chance it may pique one's interest, it's worth seeking out.