Sleeping Beauty

It's not like I'm not capable of appreciating a good artistic or original movie, on the contrary really but this movie is offering far too little to make it stand out on any level.

Perhaps it's true that I'm simply getting fed up with these sort of movies, since I have seen far too many of them already. It's the sort of movie that's all too well aware of its style and realizes very well its being part of the more artistic, independent movie genre. It's therefore being just like any other movie out of the genre basically, without offering anything new or provoking.

It has a very deliberate and well thought out and planned, style of film-making to it. It doesn't feel spontaneous in any way. The movie very rarely cuts away. When there is a cut in this movie, it means that the scene is over and another one, set at another place will start. The camera does move at times but lots of times the movie only consists purely out of static shots, with characters sitting or standing in the foreground. It's all too forced and obvious and if I want a front-view of actors, with a few props and sets, I'll go and watch a stage-play. The possibilities with movies are now days pretty much endless, yet the movie is doing absolutely nothing with it. It's minimalistic and slow, up to a point that the movie actually starts to become a bit of a drag. It manages to make 104 minutes seem like a very long time!

So is the movie pretentious? It's deliberately trying to be an artistic one, with its images and storytelling but I wouldn't go as far as saying it's being a pretentious one, since this is director's Julia Leigh first movie and I do believe all of her intentions with it were very honest. Still she really needs to work on developing a style of her own, that really suits her and the stories she is trying to tell with her movies. There now still is nothing that makes her style unique from anything else, or distinctive in any way. It also wouldn't had harmed the movie if she got a more experienced screenplay writer to come in and help to write the story with her. I actually do feel and believe that the story worked well on paper but on the silver screen it really falls flat.

It all really could had still worked out well if the movie indeed had an intriguing story or main character in it. But the movie tries to tell its story more so with its images, rather than featuring a real good main plot line or emotions in it. It does come across a bit as some lazy film-making; 'Don't worry about the script or actors, just place a camera in a room and let the emptiness and remoteness of the scene tell the whole story'. Sorry, I just really wasn't falling for that.

It does make Emily Browning's role also a bit of an ungrateful one. Ever since she had been appearing in movies and series as a child, it was apparent that she would one day not only grow into becoming a beautiful woman but also a great star and actress. However after seeing her in this movie it also becomes apparent that she isn't quite ready for it to play a lead role and carry a movie almost entirely on her own. But all of the blame can't fall entirely on her in this case, since it probably was director Julia Leigh that told her to play her character as a very distant and emotionally bland one. Seriously, she is hardly ever showing any emotions on her face. You can't really tell if she is ever happy or sad and as a viewer it makes you feel very detached from her. This is also because she is doing some very unusual and unlikely things in this movie. It never becomes really apparent why she does them and why she is the way that she is. The movie is not really offering you an exploration into a young woman's mind and her journey in life, on her way of becoming a true woman. Just like many of its scene's, the movie feels mostly as a very empty and distant one.

And what was with here wearing the same type of clothes throughout the entire movie? She is either wearing a skirt or a dress, with some high boots, or she is either half- or completely naked. Nothing wrong with showing some skin but Emily Browning's body looks like a 13-year old, even while she was 23 at the time. The clothes she was wearing really didn't seemed to suit her body type and it actually worked quite distracting for me. It made me want to send her some money, so she could buy some pants and normal shoes.

Some people might still get something out of the movie its images or will read deeper into some of the movie its moments but personally I got very little out of this movie. It was a very empty movie story-wise and an emotionally bland one, that by the end left nothing more than a very redundant impression on me.

5/10

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Poor university student Lucy (Emily Browning) responds to a mysterious ad and falls into an erotic creepy job.

The pacing for this is way too slow. I'm willing to let the creepy story seep in, but I can't let the creeping pace go. There are too many nothing scenes. Julia Leigh is the writer/director of his artsy film with pretensions of greatness. As for the nudity, there is no sexiness or beauty. It's not gritty. It's not powerful. If we need anything, we need really tough acting from Emily Browning. She needs to show a range of emotions that she doesn't seem to possess. For most of this movie, she gives us her blank face. I must admit that there is something unique here. It's probably worked out exactly as Julia Leigh had wanted. But I just don't find it compelling.

Sleeping Beauty is a fanciful 'indie' movie about a girl, Sara, who has numerous mundane jobs as she attends an Australian university, but decides to take on some *ahem* nightwork as an inanimate object who sleeps alongside paying customers.

It's one of those films that leaves me wishing that I was smarter. I figure that way I'd like movies like this more.

Let's face it - it's different. It's different in the way it's shot, the way it tells it's story, the way the actors speak and are asked to perform and it's definitely not your average Hollywood output. It's an independent film which, if it's lucky, will achieve a cult following.

The dialogue is slow (if there is any at all), there is even less background music, it is filmed largely with one static camera shot per scene (scenes which tend to go on for longer than you might expect) and the actors all behave very aloof.

I have nothing against films that go against the 'classic Hollywood narrative.' The film industry needs them. And I'm no prude when it comes to tackling sensitive adult issues on film. However, sadly, I have to come down on the side of those who thought this film was just simply boring. I know it tries to be shocking and different. I just thought it was dull.

It's basically one of those love/hate films. I've read plenty of other reviews on it and about half side with me, while the others praise its artistic merits and depth of film-making. That's fine. Just expect to either turn it off after twenty minutes or sit riveted to the end in admiration.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm now off to watch Bruce Willis slapping bad guys and giant monsters trashing New York.

An interesting choice. Prostitution amidst university students. Rich old men who spend their money on flesh. Modern 'dettachment'... separating the body from the heart, the soul, the mind. Most of the critics of this film seem to dwell on complaining that "our world is not like that! All the people here are horrible...!!!" Of course they are missing the point. We are watching crude realities, but also dreams, symbols, Freudian/Jungian fetishes... A woman is directing. Jane Campion is producing. This is also a 'clue' that MAYBE there is more to this film than meets the eye... Behind the veneer are MANY hidden truths.( Behind the Twin Towers, behind the choice of a black president after a guy like Bush jr.) Separation from the truth. We are all 'anaesthetised'... so Lisa is NOT so strange, after all. Money rules. Maybe we are victims of our society, of our times. We are 'dead', as T.S. Eliot wrote some years ago. Of course the world is full of wonderful, hearty, passionate and generous people. But this film aims elsewhere, and I myself feel grateful to its director, scriptwriter (and , why not, actress) for taking the plunge, and re-floating Pasolini's 'Salò' in a more digestible (maybe more intelligent?) guise. Kubrick? His last movie may still reveal something in the future (ALL his films age very well), but he was an elderly man, and this young director seems to have the upper-hand in as much as hitting the nail on the head with the 'ésprit-du-temps', the 'Zeitgeist' or, more plainly,(and painfully), the new age our youth are forced to grow up in. Somewhat puzzled at first, I gave this film a chance...let it 'breathe', in my conscience and intellect. I'm glad I did. It contains more than one morsel of food for thought.

Featuring Australian actress Emily Browning in the titular role, this bizarre and uncomfortable art film is almost worth watching for her exquisitely pretty face alone; but alas, she plays an utterly depressed character completely devoid of feelings, emotions, and, well, character—a combination uncomfortable to watch whatever face is behind it.

Sleeping Beauty finds Emily Browning portray a college student who allows herself to be drugged into unconsciousness and played with by perverted old men for money—though in a bizarre turn of events it turns out she seems to care for the money as much as she does her maltreated body.

She also has a bizarre friend known as "Bird Man" who seems to be in love with her. Whatever the case—long periods of naked unconsciousness; old wrinkled men in the buff; and a seriously depressed, repressed, oppressed, and suppressed protagonist make this a very bizarre and uncomfortable art film.

(Disclaimer: The film features gorgeous cinematography and has an affecting plot, even if it isn't entirely discernible. Certainly worth watching)