Sleep
In the world of South Korean horror, a lost opportunity is salvaged by wonderful performances. Almost.
Sleepless in Seoul: Jung Yu-mi faces her nightmare
Image courtesy of Curzon
The trouble with sleep is that we’re all at it. And horror films have a way of burrowing into our subconscious safe places. However, Jason Yu’s feature directorial debut is unlikely to cause any sleepless nights, unless one is of a particularly sensitive disposition. Here, the idea is more unnerving than the actual delivery. Like many a South Korean piece, Sleep slips in and out of genre, crisscrossing its way between black comedy, social commentary and out-and-out thriller, albeit with a half-hidden smirk simpering in the darkest corners of its narrative.
Like many a movie, Sleep opens with its protagonist in bed. She is Soo-jin (Jung Yu-mi), lying there in the dark to the sound of gentle snoring. When she awakes, she finds herself alone. Then the camera follows her POV to see the back of her husband, Hyeon-soo (Lee Sun-kyun), sitting at the foot of the bed and staring at the door muttering, “Someone’s inside.” It’s an ambiguous statement, and after Hyeon-soo passes out on the spot, and with the provision of various noises without, Soo-jin takes matters into her own hands. In the following minute we learn two salient facts: Soo-jin is substantially pregnant and she can look after herself. Picking up a hand-drill, she ventures into the darkness of the apartment and discovers that the cause of the noise is none other than their beloved Pomeranian, Pepper. It is a false alarm. Or is it?
Soo-jin’s real cause for alarm should be that her husband has just passed out. What evolves, tangentially, is that, we are told, Hyeon-soo is suffering from REM sleep behaviour disorder – or is he? As any sleep expert will tell you, somnambulism (or sleepwalking, in layman’s terms) only occurs during non-dreaming NREM sleep, or maybe this was lost in translation. Jason Yu, who previously worked as assistant director for Bong Joon-ho, enjoys moving his characters like chess pieces across his narrative, so that we’re never sure who is about to be checkmated.
Yu certainly keeps the comedy at the fore, and without sacrificing the connection of his two leads, who act off each other beautifully. Yu is also at pains not to overstate the horror elements, utilising a temperate colour palette and bathing the couple’s apartment in the illusion of natural light. The overall effect might have been even more persuasive had he dialled back Hyuk-jin Chang and Yong-jin Chang’s overtly portentous ‘background’ music.
As the ramifications of Hyeon-soo’s sleep disorder become more complex, one might have hoped for something less pat and even more sinister, particularly as their perfect marriage starts to feel the strain of Hyeon-soo’s somnambulism.
At its best, then, Sleep marks a promising debut for Yu, is never less than arresting to behold and retains the attention until the final curtain. But it still feels like a missed opportunity – the recesses of the mind in its most vulnerable state should truly be the stuff of nightmares. We are entertained, but we are not unduly scared. Nevertheless, as the final film credit of the actor Lee Sun-kyun – before his suicide last December – Sleep received generally positive reviews, particularly for the two central performances. And deservedly so.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Jung Yu-mi, Lee Sun-kyun, Kim Gook Hee, Yoon Kyung-ho.
Dir Jason Yu, Pro Lewis Taewan Kim, Screenplay Jason Yu, Ph Tae-soo Kim, Pro Des Yu Jin Shin, Ed Meeyeon Han, Music Hyuk-jin Chang and Yong-jin Chang, Sound Tae-Won Gong.
Lewis Pictures-Artificial Eye/Curzon.
94 mins. South Korea. 2024. UK Rel: 12 July 2024. Cert. 15.
