Beyond Sleep (2016)
8/10
Expectations and disillusions
11 March 2016
When I was at high school, long ago, I read the 1966 novel on which this movie is based: Nooit Meer Slapen (Never sleep again) by the late Dutch writer W.F. Hermans. The book read like a slow burner on existentialism and loneliness in the Norwegian wilderness.

I was pleasant surprised that this story was finally made into a movie.

Beyond Sleep leans heavily on close ups of leading man Reinout Scholten van Aschat who plays a young geologist searching for meteor impacts in Norway. He is beautiful with his green eyes and red beard. Scholten van Aschat is a real cinematographer's dream. The agony and anguish he has to play is inarticulate because he is a typical polite Dutch boy who doesn't complain easily.

Betrayal is the main topic. On screen there is a lot of controlled anger (that gives the movie a thriller element) and the counterpart of that, delusions and paranoid hallucinations. Fate and irony overwhelm the young geologist. The results of the expedition are the total opposite of the expectations.
24 out of 31 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink

Recently Viewed