Brother of Sleep

the movie is based on the book written by the Austrian writer Robert Schneider and expands on it beautifully. it can be a bit difficult to follow and if you are looking for an action packed thriller, this is not the movie for you. The main character, Elias Alder, is born in 1803 into a town in the Austrian mountains. The town is so remote, that it is practically never visited by outsiders, and the inhabitants do not leave. there are only two families living in the village, continuously feuding, leading lives that go nowhere. here Elias is born with perfect (even supernatural) hearing. both the book and the movie illustrate the merciless life in a town that has been dying for for years and the life of a young man born with an extraordinary gift, which is worthless in the life and world he is born into. the tag-line "wer schlaeft liebt nicht" translates to "he who sleeps, does not love" - one of the lines from the movie - and the title give ample indication of the characters' futile lives. "schlafes bruder" or "sleep's brother" is death.

I do not know the (best selling) novel and this adaptation does not prompt me to read it. There is nothing against a film that concerns itself with religious experiences, but this is all very New Age and Vilsmaier does it in the cheapest and most sensationalist way possible: staying on the outside by using all the technical (camera) tricks he could think of and letting the cast screaming their eyes out or by letting them simply overact. In this way the film is just registering an experience, it does not become a part of the film's atmosphere (you have to be an Ingmar Bergman for that).

The very old fashioned melodrama (freshened up by a "modern" element : "oh, that's it!, he's gay!", unbelievable) is not fluently told and the cast is just okay. Mountain scenery and good organ music at least make it bearable.

This is a good film, actually. It's not extremely faithful to the novel, which is not a bad thing in itself, and if you know the novel, you will understand that there are some aspects of it that couldn't be expressed very well in a film. So they added and changed quite a bit of the story and expanded on the novel, which makes the film interesting to see even if you already know the book, but for some reason they apparently tried to "modernise" the character of Elsbeth by what she is made rather implausible. Still, it's a good movie, well executed, beautifully shot, with a great film score and great cast and acting, rather inspired.

When I saw the movie I was a little bit disappointed because I first read the novel, but when I really thought about it Joseph Vlismair did the best with the stuff he had. In the novel there are so many feelings described which you can't describe with pictures and sounds. Watch the film when you already read the novel because otherwise you may not understand some parts. All in all it is a very good Film!

If you want to see a film that is in the 1% of different; this is the film for you. It is eccentric, bizarre, beautiful, mesmerizing, horrific, and at times, a bit disjointed. The total effect, however, is unforgettable. The music alone is worth the price of your time. It has the feeling of a Hesse novel at times; with that mixture of beauty and horror. In this film, however, the hills truly are alive with the sound of music.