cpcapaul

In the soundtrack the theme of David Bowie's Low recurs time and again. Fitting. The film is dark and under the radar. And literally, the key scene is below ground, in a smuggling tunnel across the US/MX border.

The story thrives on suspense.

South of the border, the war on drugs and all that.

We know. Still, the tension captures you.

The barren plains of Arizona. We know those too. Here you see them from above and through night goggles.

And that's great.

But it's not a DEA / war on drugs flick.

More, it is about the secret operations, secret even between the several services. Ans about the corruption within the law services.

'this is the land of wolves now'

Great acting for the leading roles (Emily Blunt and Benicio Del Toro) but als the 'normal' supporting policeman and his boy and all the others.

Beyond Sleep is based on the novel by Dr. W. F. Hermans, an influential author after World War 2. He himself was a geologist.

Language is not by definition visual, which shows here.

Nice movie, it captures the absurd lonely world view of Hermans but to me, with a very different feel. Although Hermans writes very economical (brut), his style is marvellous, being one with the subject and his philosophy. In a novel nothing is acoincidnce. Yet in the film I feel more the idea that nothing matters. I has no inner consequence wlike the novel.

What else? I like the music and sound underneath the film, though like most Dutch films one cannot alway make outthe mumbling of the actors.

And the landscape is of coarse brilliant.

On the whole i feel the book is better, a cliché but sometimes cliché's are true.

Heartbreaking drama like only the Scandinavians can do, with a very light touch which makes it cut deeper, leaving you sad and cheerful at the same time.

Think A man called Ove, remade with Otto as the name, which is, despite Tom Hanks a blank and superficial copy.

A simple clever story (allways the best) about life, love and death, and yes, the curse of the working classes.

Teachers this time. So we also see something like Poet's Society happening. It is about failure too and I don't think that is a spoiler.

If you like Mads Mikkelsen (and who doesn't) you do not want to miss this fil, if only because he has arather great dancing scene.