Included as part of the BFI Flipside
Sleepwalker (1985) release, this rare 45 minute feature
film written, produced and directed by documentary short maker Rodney Giesler
is part nightmare part sexual fantasy were a man inhabits an alternative
countryside world when he is asleep. Giesler’s work consists of eight
documentary shorts the last one was made in 1980. The Insomniac (1971) is
the only feature film he has produced, and as a double bill with Saxon Logan’s
feature film works extremely well, in fact both films compliment each other.
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| Morris Perry is the Man. |
The Insomniac
follows the erotic dream of a nameless family man that takes place in an
idyllic countryside location. Three children play in a large picturesque
garden. The scene changes to a cityscape where the man sits in his motor vehicle
in the midst of a traffic queue, when the lights change he is asleep and is awoken
by blasts from the car horns of those behind him. He travels home to a block of
flats. Here we find his wife and his three children, who we previously saw in
the ‘picturesque garden’, they are playing outside the flats in a hard
landscaped play area! The children are read a bedtime story about the power of
imagination and dreams. The man and his wife settle to “blankly” watch
television and then go to bed. In bed the man tries unsuccessfully to grope his
wife’s breasts but does not get the desired result, we are given the impression
that this is not a very loving relationship. Its now midnight and the man is
still not asleep he smokes a cigarette and we see through his half drawn
curtains that there is bright sunlight outside. Getting out of bed he looks out
of the window of his flat and we see below the fantasy garden that his children
were playing in. He gets dressed and goes outside in what appears to be a totally
different world. Driving his car through peaceful country lanes he is flagged
down by a man in evening dress who’s wearing sunglasses and asked if he could
give him a lift to a party. When they arrive at a large posh house ‘sunglasses’
invites the man inside where he finds a jovial crowd all dressed in their
refinery. Made welcome and given a drink he observes a very attractive blond
woman in a long clinging white dress sitting on a sofa talking to another
evening suited man. The woman gives our man the “come on” and both go out in
the garden but not before the woman has put on her sunglasses. She is finally persuaded to take off the
glasses and following a fracas with her husband, get’s into the man’s car and
they drive off with the husband and the other men from the party in close
pursuit. The man’s car runs out of petrol and the pair take of through the
countryside and loose there pursuers. Running
hand in hand like a pair of young lovers they end up by a lake where they take
off their clothes, go for a swim and end up making love naked on the bank
watched only by a swan. Suddenly the man awakes in an industrial area near his
home, he is lying beside a canal still naked with his clothes near by, and we
hear a train rumble by. The evening suited men turn up in a car and kick his
clothes in the water laughing out loud. The woman is in the back seat of car
looking downcast but seemingly not recognising the man. Its morning and suddenly we are back inside
the flat. The wife is getting the three children ready for school and giving
them their breakfast. She reacts to a knock at the door to find two policemen with
the man dressed only in an old raincoat. The children are told to go out to
play – they are in the ‘picturesque garden’ again!
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| Valerie van Ost is the Woman. |
Made by Auriga Films Ltd based at
Leatherhead in Surrey England, the film stars Morris Perry is the man, whose
busy acting career has been mainly spent working in television including a
stint as Captain Dent in Doctor Who.
The blond woman is played by
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| A very different world! |
The man and his children both
occupy two very different worlds. The children are influenced by the stories
they are read, where as the man is influenced by his primal desires and his
need to break away from his institutionalised life style. Rodney Giesler has managed to bring together
the man’s rather dull existence and the more colourful and exciting world of
his dreams. An impressive debut from a man I must admit I was not familiar with
and can’t help wonder why he never made any more feature films?
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