wide awake
Originally uploaded by Steve Rhodes.
I put the tape of Wide Awake in my vcr just after midnight. I was exhausted, but it kept me up (and laughing) for the next ninety minutes.
It will be shown Saturday at 5:45 pm at PFA in Berkeley, Sunday at 4:15 pm at the Aquarius in Palo Alto, and more appropriately at 9:30 pm on Tuesday at the Kabuki.
I've been nocturnal since I was a kid and sleep deprived almost that long, so I identified with Alan Berliner's examination of his insomnia. When he described how his mind raced with thoughts when tried to fall alseep in bed, I knew exactly what he meant. I also do my best work at night (so this post written a bit before noon won't be as good as the film deserves - maybe I'll rewrite it when I get home in the week hours after the late night showing of The Descent).
Berliner captures the dilemma of knowing that it is healthier and kinder to your family and friends to fall alsleep long before the sun rises, but not wanting to miss anything including what could be your best work.
He talks to a series of experts on sleep to both try and find out why he doesn't sleep and how he can get better.
One sequence shows him taking a red eye to show Nobody's Business, his film about his father, to a small audience at a college. He uses a camcorder with night vision to show how many of the students fall asleep during his film.
One of the experts explains it isn't because they are bored by his film, they would fall alseep in the dark no matter what was showing (so remember that if you hear someone snoring next to you during a film at the fest which is perhaps the perfect laboratory besides college for studying sleep deprivation).
There is much more to say (and I will when it gets a theatrical release and is eventually be shown on HBO), but I'm getting tired.
Berliner is at the SFIFF, so it is worth staying awake to see Wide Awake.
