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| Alan Berliner is Wide Awake |
I've had insomnia for close to 8 weeks now. The slow descent into slumber I used to know and love is hijacked. Everything from news bites, strange sounds, memories, future plans, editing choices, disappointments, political infuriates, kinds words, hard feelings, colours, textures, faces, ambitions, failures. They are all there and I've become a reluctant somnambulist.
This is no better demonstrated and explored than Alan Berliner's excellent documentary Wide Awake. For anyone that has suffered long (or even short term) insomnia you must see this film. Berliner makes personal films, and this one will not disappoint. It is extremely well done and often quite humorous. His insomnia stems from a lifelong struggle. In the film he examines early family years, his own obsessive art practice, found film footage, sleep therapists, his relationship with his wife to the birth of his son, leaving him feeling “jet lagged in his own time zone". (Yes, exactly).
http://alanberliner.com