Sleep (2024)

Review for RAF News July 2024

A professional actor and his pregnant wife are safe-proofing the house and changing their lifestyle – not just preparing their home for the baby on the way, but fortifying against something far more sinister that haunts their nights.

Sleep, the Korean horror debut of Jason Yu, opens appropriately with the sound of deep, guttural snoring. The culprit is Hyun-su (the late Lee Sun-kyun), an Oscar winner who now sits bolt up right at end of the bed muttering that “someone is inside”, panicking wife Soo-Jin (Jung Yu-mi) to high alert before he cosily returns to sleep. 

There is a deft mix of dark humour and creeping dread, that eases the tension with perfectly timed comic relief, especially as Hyun-su’s nighttime escapades become more unpredictable and violent: one scratching fit early on leaves gashes in his face. When he starts to sleepwalk and roam about the apartment, they begin to fear for the safety of Pepper, their little Pomeranian, as well as the unborn baby.

An executive by profession, Soo-Jin is a pragmatist and so she waves off her mother’s spiritual notions and instead meets every potential hazard with a solution, beginning with a trip to the sleep clinic. Here they will learn that Hyun-su’s nocturnal activities are all symptoms of a stress induced sleep disorder, but the question is whether they can help before he does anything drastic.

Sleekly made with a style that complements its suspenseful turns and moments of gore, Sleep sets its story up neatly and commits to its level of escalation. A fun and sometimes wince inducing horror that does a great job of treading the line between heightened reality and the supernatural.

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Hounds (2024)

A father, perpetually down on his luck, ropes his son into a job that will spiral into chaos in this tense Moroccan crime thriller.

Hounds opens appropriately, but nonetheless upsettingly, at the end of a dog-fight in which Dib (Abdellatif Lebkiri) sits collapsed by his bloodied and lifeless canine. Believing that the victor and his crew have cheated, it sparks a desire for vengeance in which no-one is without fault – there are no ’good’ people.

Jailbird Hassan (Abdellatif Masstouri) is eager to make money however he can and so takes Dib up on his offer to kidnap one of the crew, taking along his more streetwise and cautious son Issam (Ayoub Elaïd). But when the rental car for the job is delivered and is coloured red, apparently a bad omen, things are not destined to be that easy. There is a knowing black-humour that accompanies the more grim turns as the assignment becomes more involved.

Set in the darkly-lit underbelly of Casablanca, there is a grittiness that envelopes our men on a mission as they become more entangled: each situation hairier than the last, each hurdle that much higher. Hassan and his son will have to avoid the police, the rival crew and any potential onlookers as they scramble to fix their predicament. All of this whilst plagued by superstition.

Over the course of this one crazy night it will become clear that the central duo are the titular hounds, the underlings employed for the dirty work. The impressive cast are made up of non-actors, giving an authenticity that is helped by the documentary shooting style.

A simple, lean and suspenseful debut film from writer-director Kamal Lazraq.

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La Chimera (2024)

Written for RAF News May 2024

Freshly released from jail in Tuscany, an Englishman wanders back into the company of his friends, a disreputable but loving gang of grave-robbers lead by his uncanny gift for dowsing.

Arthur (Josh O’Connor) has an aura that attracts people, this in spite of his demeanour which is largely aloof if not cagey. Grieving the loss of his girlfriend and without a job or place to go, he finds himself staying with the mother of his absent partner Flora (Isabella Rossellini) in a ramshackle palace frequented by her army of daughters, as well as Italia (Carol Duarte), one of her least talented students.

Tone deaf but undertaking vocal coaching, Italia stays in the house, curiously observing Arthur and carrying out the housework apparently in aid of her tutelage: “to exercise the voice, you must first exercise the body”. A convenient method of teaching that saves Flora from having to pay a maid.

With segments shot on 16mm, or in a wacky altered frame rate, La Chimera has many playful affectations but it never feels forced. Classical music provides interstitials filled with cutaways that are observational and dreamlike, like long-forgotten memories. There is a vibrance to the picture, not only in its colour but in the life that it depicts. Each character with their wild uniqueness emerges naturally from this world, which in case you were interested is the small commune of Riparbella sometime in the 1980s.

Just like his grave-robbing gang – the so-called ‘tombalari’ – desperate to have Arthur’s guidance, pointing the way to underground chambers filled with undiscovered relics, La Chimera is funny and charming. In fact their humour and attitude is deeply infectious, and it is a pleasure to spend time in their company. A wondrous and whimsical experience.

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