Sleep Has Her House (2017)

Director/Producer/Writer/Music/Cinematography: Scott Barley
UK 1h 30m

It’s not often I get so excited to write about a movie wanting to say so much about it what most would see as being so little.

The cover alone of Sleep Has Her House (2017) was enough to tweak me into signing up to Kinoscope and taking quality time out to submerge myself into this advantageous one man project. The experience was deep and moving, this totally experimental adventure really crawls under the skin.

Scott Barley, a mere babe in his mid 20s; has successfully conjured a masterful compelling movie entirely on his iPhone, this contender for one of the more mysterious of the  slow cinema movement due to its use of long takes.

The film opens in darkness, some chilling words appear and slowly vanish from the screen emerging from pitch black…

The shadows of screams climb beyond the hills.

It has happened before.

But this will be the last time.

The last few sense it, withdrawing deep into the forest.

They cry out into the black, as the shadows pass away, into the ground.

Slowly emerging from the gloom are a small herd of white ponies standing together in the darkness the music fades I into the droning sound of running water a powerful waterfall arms to give birth to something.. Slowly the camera pans around a night time world void of humans and only a few select animals roam around the darkness, following the water into a lake, the tremendous starry night, something beings to manifest itself leaving a terrible wake of death and apocalyptic terror.

There’s no major story and really I think the project is open for interpretation. Originally the film was 4 hours long and intended to be an installation that people could enjoy and “fall asleep to”, so there doesn’t seem to be anything profound to be dug up in between the lush and dark shots.

Slow Cinema is named so for it’s long shots,  but these shadowy shots are so very large and long, one in particular is a waterfall, filmed from the bottom up somehow Barley manages to make it come alive, as if a creature is crawling through the soft spray, another is of an 11 minute sunrise, it give a gentle feeling that things will be alright but it’s just the calm before a devastating storm.

It’s hard for me to really express what drew me to the film and what really caught my attention, but it really speaks to me and it’s a hard contender to start off another list, i.e. Films that would benefit from an Atmospheric Black Metal OST Vol.2  (Films that would benefit from an Atmospheric Black Metal OST Vol.1 can be found here).

So much dedication has paid off in a subtle beautiful movie which transcends into a new realm of film making.

Rating 10/10

R:there’s not much like this… 

L: Kinoscope Films

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