Sleepwalk

Director: Sara Driver
Screenwriters: Sara Driver, Lorenzo Mans

Institute History

  • 1987 Sundance Film Festival

Description

Nicole (Suzanne Fletcher) works in a small, bizarre print shop where she operates a word processor that is getting her down. Because she understands Chinese, she accepts an assignment, from a strange and mysterious duo who pay in cash and require utmost secrecy. Her job is to translate an ancient Chinese manuscript that seems to posses unexplained powers.

Strange things begin to happen. Nicole’s friend and roommate, Isabelle (Ann Manguson) loses all her hair. Nicole’s small, Asian-looking son, Jimmy (Dexter Lee) is accidentally kidnapped when he’s sleeping in the back of Isabell’s car as it’s stolen. Nicole must begin a search for her missing son in a landscape bedeviled by shifting realities.

Sleepwalk is a voyage of the imagination, where things left unexplained and unsaid provide important clues to deciphering meaning. Peppered with amusing peripheral characters, Sleepwalk is a voyage of the imagination, where things left unexplained and unsaid provide important clues to deciphering meaning. Peppered with amusing peripheral characters, Sleepwalk is an auspicious debut for director Sara Driver, who also produced Jim Jarmusch’s cult hit, Stranger Than Paradise.

— Lawrence Smith

Screening Details

Credits

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