Gideon Koppel: Sleep Furiously/CPH:DOX 15
Trefeurig is the name of a small village community in Wales. This is where director and cameraman Gideon Koppel takes us – on a stunningly beautiful, wonderfully slow, and editing-like surprising voyage that I have difficulties in forgetting after two viewings at the markets at DOCLisboa and now at cph:dox.
I long to watch it on a big screen, I want to dwelve into the landscape paintings, to a rythm of Life that is disappearing. But it is also a documentary about the people, who live there and as a librarian educated in the last century, it creates a sweet memory in me to see a library bus arrive and the old people come to get their books and have a chat with the librarian. Who worries because ”they” want him to install a computer to make his work easier! ”How are you”, ”keeping going” is a dialogue often performed in the film. Many, many banal daily life scenes, but in the film lifted up to something different, a confirmation of the value of Life.
It is season after season, it is gorgeous when you see a whole image full of a scenery with sheep going down slooowly, absolutely outstanding, episodical, f… all modern claims for ”story”, nostalgic, yes, a hymn to nature, with a precise sound design and music by Aphex Twin. A quote at the end of the film, dont know from whom: It´s only when I see the end of things, I get the courage to speak, the courage, but not the words.
Wales, 2007, 94 mins.
