Sleepwalking (film 2005)

France. A young man named Berlo after a mother’s funeral has a recurring dream. There is a knock on the door and his personal belongings - a towel, linen treacherously climb to the door to open it. Hefty orderlies burst into the room, put on a straitjacket on Berlo, he resists and crushes and smashes everything in the room in a dream. This time, an unknown elderly man invites Berlo to visit him to help him wake up from a nightmare.

So the hero gets acquainted with the mysterious Marquis and his castle, where the owner arranges orgies in the chapel. They are accompanied by the frenzied curses of the Marquis against God and nature, and then cataleptic attacks . The Marquis is cured of them in a very original way: he orders to bury himself alive. And only this procedure returns it for some time to normal life. After all this, an attack occurs with Berlo - with visions of running cut off tongues and pieces of revived meat, and the Marquis advises him to undergo medical treatment in a mental institution, run by his friend, an active participant in an orgy.

Charlotte, another sister to Marquis’s amusements, works at the hospital, and she revealed a secret to her new friend who was in love with her: a year ago, under the leadership of Marquis and his friends, insane rebellion took place in the hospital, and the real doctor-director and his staff are kept in terrible conditions in the basements of the house. She was forced to participate in orgies. Fascinated by Charlotte, Berlo finds the keys to the cellars and frees the prisoners, overgrown with chicken feathers and lost their human appearance.

Having avenged the offenders, the new director explains to his liberator Berlo the method of his own therapy in the treatment of mental illness: Soul and Body are constantly fighting for the person. If the Soul conquers, then the Body becomes ill; if the Body conquers, then a person becomes ill with a mental disorder. Doctor's therapy consists in weakening the body with physical punishment. The cited Marquis and his friends are subjected to the most terrible tortures, they are demonstrated by animation on pieces of live meat. The suffering girl turns out to be the insatiable lover of the sadistic doctor, and the young Berlo’s terrible dream about flayers, orderlies and a straitjacket becomes a reality.

• 2 nominations for “ Czech Lions ” in the nominations “Best Art Director” - Eva Schwankmeierova, “Best Poster”.

2 awards for "Best Director" ( Jan Schwankmeier ) and "Best Actor" ( Jan Tršiska ).

• “The film combines today's realities and historical scenery - all these are allegories of the modern world. And the insane asylum is its representative decoration, ” Schwankmeier wrote.
• The film’s literary script, based on two stories by Edgar Allan Poe - “Premature Burial” (“Buried Alive”) and “The System of Dr. Smole and Professor Perrault”, as well as under the influence of the Marquis de Sade novels — Schwankmeier created thirty years ago. But the leadership of socialist cinematography then refused to be staged. Thirty years later, Schwankmeier realized his dream.
• “There are no definite answers to these questions in the film,” says Jaromir Kallista, permanent producer and closest associate of Jan Schwankmeier . - All the films of Jan Schwankmeier are made in such a way that the viewer himself must decipher the riddles according to his personal experience, his own likes and dislikes. And in politics. Of course, the figures in the film are ambiguous, mysterious and have many signs and signs. Therefore, there is so much talk and debate about Schwankmeier films ... Schwankmeier always gives his films funny subtitles: for example, we called the movie “Sleepwalking” a “philosophical horror film”.

• Official movie website
• Sleepwalking on the Internet Movie Database
• About the film