Sleep Has Her House

...more an unforgettable experience than a film. It is nothing you just can watch with friends and chat and check your phone etc. I would strongly recommend to see it alone with no distraction and handle it a bit like a meditation. Give it it's time and stay tuned what your mind will show you!

Mind-numbing think piece.

This kinda works just like hypnosis...it does its job only if you allow it, if you go with it. And you have to do a lot of preparation in order to work. You have to see this in pitch black, not during the day, but late at night. You have to let your mind wander and fill in the blanks. Basically, this is the reason I don't like it. It's a minimal effort from the director. He just crops up some barely visible stills (some with movement) with sound effects and you have to do the story, and make it on the spot. I get it. Some will like that.

The LB rating shows that this platform is filled with people who desperately try to find meaning in nothing, pretentious people. And Scott did this service for them. Those people finished all cinema and now try to search for meaning in anti-cinema, which this film clearly is. You can keep it.

This is worse than Last and First Men.

Scott Barley's biggest and most ambitious project yet deliverers an entrancing experience that enkindles fascination as much as relaxation.

A film guided by the pacing of nature, letting the climate pass by, slowly revealing a story more akin to music, not by telling a concrete narrative but elaborating on mood and atmosphere ; as mysterious as it is wonderful, a place engulfed in darkness, yet surrounded by calming sounds of waterfalls, winds and leaves.

I am so surprised by just how much a few simple shots of nature can be this skilfully utilized, conveying the beauty and harshness of a forest in a truly unique way.

Content more suitable for a audio/visual exhibit, digital displays or projectors +/- sound, not cinema. I suspect the director just had a bunch of pictures and footage and thought "hey why not throw this together and call this a film?" - and so they did. This is the sort of movie that makes you question if there is an idea, a thought behind the imagery and atmosphere, or just poor planning and laziness. This is more akin to a PowerPoint presentation than a movie. The nature depicted in the images is gorgeous and sadly struggling for meaning or purpose. If you have run out of things to watch go to YouTube instead.

This is definitely among the best films of 2016, a rather strong year for cinema. It is a prodigious thought knowing that such a powerful film as Sleep Has Her House was shot on an iPhone. The darkly beautiful cinematography is complemented by harmonious score and ethereal images. Perhaps every last shot of the film could serve as its poster. Sleep combines the best elements of experimental films like The Hart of London, The Turin Horse, and Visions of Meditation to form an ineffable cinematic experience. The film is thoroughly engaging and beautifully shot and edited. Despite being considered a "slow movie", Sleep Has Her House moves forward fairly quickly, never focusing on one shot for too long, balancing its themes quite well.

Perhaps Barley's greatest achievement with this film is portraying a dream-like state, channeling the likes of Tarkovsky and Deren. The film's length matches the time of an average sleep cycle, and the film itself carries the viewer through such a dream and its different stages.

The first part of the film depicts a sense of ambivalence within a dream found in the confines of nature. The remainder of the film appears as a gradual descent into nature's acceptance of the world's end, the true inevitable nightmare. This is accomplished with Barley's impressive form and leaves this writer with a sense of awe, similar to the emotional response gained from Fricke and Reggio's films, although through different subject matter.

This viewer expects a gradual increase of attention and appreciation for Barley's work by cinephiles in the near future. It is great. Watch it for yourself.