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To sleep, perchance to dream
Characters are haunted by half-remembered clues to a terrible accident in the Hitchcockian romance-thriller "Winter Sleepers" from the director of "Run Lola Run."
By JOSHUA TANZER
Offoffoff.com
Before the megahit "Run Lola Run," director Tom Tykwer made "Winter Sleepers," which if it had
been made afterwards is the kind of film a critic would point to as a sign of the director's
evolving maturity.
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| | | WINTER SLEEPERS | Original title: WinterschlŠfer.
Directed by: Tom Tykwer.
Written by: Anne-Franoise Pyszora and Tom Tykwer.
Cast: Ulrich Matthes, Marie-Lou Sellem, Floriane Daniel, Heino Ferch, Josef Bierbichler, Laura Maori Tonke.
Cinematography: Frank Griebe.
In German with English subtitles.
Related links: Official site |
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Some of the fast-paced, in-your-face techniques that made the music-video-style
"Lola" such a wild ride are used in "Winter Sleepers" too, but in small doses and in service of a
much more complex story.
The film revolves around two young couples and a family in a small Bavarian ski town, linked
by fate when an accident on a snowy mountain road leaves a young girl in a coma. While the
tall, good-looking ski instructor Marco is visiting his gorgeous girlfriend Rebecca, a
shifty-looking guy named Rene swipes his Alfa Romeo and goes out for a fateful joy ride
from which he walks away without a care.
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The moral situation is a simple one — at first.
But then people begin to behave in puzzling ways, and it isn't long before you doubt your
first impressions.
All of the characters are subtle and interesting in what on the surface is a multiple love
story but beneath that is a Hitchcock-style mystery. Even the characters involved in the
accident are unsure about what happened, and they grapple with buried memories, subconscious
clues and the doubts of everyone around them.
Although "Winter Sleepers" is full of cinematic flourishes, it's not a showoff film about
filmmaking — it's a character-driven thriller that's one of the most affecting movies of
the year.
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MARCH 25, 2000
OFFOFFOFF.COM • THE GUIDE TO ALTERNATIVE NEW YORK
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