About

With a script drawn from Georges Perec’s 1967 novel of the same title, The Man Who Sleeps is an existentially poetic treatise on futility and ennui. The film follows a student in his mid-twenties (Jacques Spiesser) who decides to retreat from the social world and exist as much as possible without human interaction. Wandering the eerily deserted streets of Paris (including Rue Vilin, the street on which Perec was born) or staying in his tiny rented room, the man’s increasingly automaton-like actions are narrated in a hypnotic voiceover by Shelley Duvall in second person singular. The Man Who Sleeps, Perec’s first foray into cinema, is a minimalist triumph and the winner of the prestigious Jean Vigo award in 1975.

Ages 15+