Sleep Has Her House
Scott Barley / GB, 2017 / 90 min.
An astonishing debut, written, produced, directed and edited by the 25-year-old British filmmaker Scott Barley, who shot his film on an iPhone. Slow cinema at its very best.
The end of days is nigh. Mankind is long extinct. The waterfall dries up. The first lightening slowly builds. A storm starts. Everything goes black. Until the light returns from the darkness. Have we entered the afterlife?
Nature is terrifying and awe-inspiring; so powerful it makes humans insignificant. Sleep Has Her House is an exceptional landscape film in which tiny movements and subtle changes make a huge impression. Sometimes the film is so calm and quiet that screen looks like a painting projected onto the screen. Then something begins to flow, a gust of wind blows through the trees to dazzling effect.
Installation artist Scott Barley, a promising filmmaker from Wales, made a determinedly ethical film that evokes the 'terrible sublime’. He documented two days in a woodland, starting with an abstract close-up of a waterfall. As dawn breaks, the camera floats somewhere above the clouds. The film’s longest take is 11 minutes in length and records a slowly setting sun. A prime example of slow cinema.
Details
Director
Scott Barley
Production year
2017
Country
GB
Original title
Sleep Has Her House
Length
90 min.
Language
none
Format
DCP
Part of
Cinema Ecologica
Much in life is uncertain, but one thing is sure: climate change. Cinema Ecologica focuses on how film directors depict the relationship between humanity and the earth: from nail-biting disaster films to artistic meditations, from romantic nature experiences to astounding science fiction.
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