
L'Eveillé du pont de l'Alma (The Insomniac on the Bridge)
Regie, Drehbuch: Raúl Ruiz; Kamera: François Ede; Schnitt: Rodolfo Wedeles; Musik: Gérard Maimone; Darsteller*innen: Michael Lonsdale, Jean Bernard Guillard, Olimpia Carlisi, Melvil Poupaud. FR, 1985, 35mm, Farbe und sw, 76 min. Französisch mit engl. UTThis film is hard to watch. Seriously, because courage is required to engage in this work made by Ruiz in rapid production and in his signature surrealist style. Alternating between black and white and color images, we accompany two insomniacs who always meet at the Pont de l'Alma on the Seine, we witness their brutal, practically incidental crimes and their philosophical discussions, as profound as they are bizarre, on sleep and its power. In addition, a doctor, his wife, and his son are involved in this total dissolution of boundaries between reality, dream, and death, which leaves us appropriately confused and unsettled. (B.K.)