"Sleep Furiously" is a profound and charming documentary set in and around a small town in mid Wales
Gideon Koppel's documentary of a year in the life of Trefeurig, the rural Welsh community where his parents, refugees from Nazi Germany, settled down, and where he grew up, begins so quietly, to the point of being poetic, that it might accurately have been called Ode to Trefeurig. Instead it takes its title from Noam Chomsky's example of a sentence - 'colourless green ideas sleep furiously' - which, although grammatically correct, offers no understandable meaning. It is a title which, in the beginning at least, might well be considered no less apt, for only gradually does the meaning of this understated documentary become apparent.
Trefeurig is the most picturesque of places, where time is marked only by the seasonal changes of weather and the monthly return of the mobile library, an archetypal idea of the golden past made real; and the way in which Koppel films this picturesque beauty and accompanies it with a rather subdued, thoughtful soundtrack gives this film a somewhat meditative feel. But what is not immediately apparent, and only becomes apparent through the fragmentary portraits of its residents, is that Trefeurig, and all that once made it a thriving community, is slowly dying.
The local school is to shut permanently, a decision taken by those outside the community who, like a vision of Kafkaesque bureaucracy, remain nameless and faceless to the people most affected by the decision, and it is this alone which seems to rouse the community from their placidity; they fear for the future of their way of life, and there is a sense of regret, loss and foreboding which quietly permeates throughout this documentary and juxtaposes the scenes of picturesque beauty and the moments of quite surprise and humour often found in the mundane nature of everyday rural life.
One such scene has a resident recite a poem to camera, a poem we can presume he himself has written, about how the local council changed a road sign directing visitors into the village from an old wooden one to a modern steel one; it is a moment at once mundane yet full of humour and still fully suggestive of this mistrust of modernity and longing for a simpler past which is shared by the whole community.
For Trefeurig seems to have become something of a refuge for many of its residents who, for whatever reason, have sought an escape from the modern way of life, and there is a sadness attached to the knowledge that places like this cannot escape unscathed by the march of progress.
I knew little about Sleep Furiously before watching it and was pleasantly surprised to have found a highly distinctive and unique documentary; for those willing to accept the film on its own terms, without expecting it to fit the pre-determined narrative structures of more traditional documentaries, I highly recommended it.
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Gideon Koppel directs this poetically-rendered portrait of Trefeurig, the small farming community in mid-Wales where he grew up. On a practical level, the isolated rural community struggles for survival as the local primary school is threatened with closure, traditional farming methods are rendered non-viable and key services disappear - but the community spirit and strong connection with nature ensure that many of the more intrinsic aspects of the old way of life are kept alive. Reminiscent of the works of Dylan Thomas in its subtle portrayal of rural life, the film combines striking cinematography with an ambient electronic soundtrack by Aphex Twin to pay homage to the filmmaker's birthplace and a way of life that could soon die out altogether.
Please note this is a region 2 DVD and will require a region 2 (Europe) or region Free DVD Player in order to play. Sleep Furiously is set in a small farming community in mid Wales, about 50 miles north of Dylan Thomas' fictional village of Llareggub and there is a sense in which this is a film 'for' Dylan Thomas, if not a contemporary translation of 'Under Milk Wood'. This is a place where Koppel's parents - both refugees - found a home.
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