Drowsiness

306830693070307130723073307430753076307730783079308030813082308330843085308630873088

fot. Agata Stoińska, promotional materials of TOR, VISION FILM

hree characters entangled in toxic relations with their families have an opportunity to change their lives on the spur of a sudden, unexpected impulse. Chance crosses their path at a meaningful moment, and they inadvertently influence their fate. All at once, they realise that they have slept through their lives. The death of one character makes the other two begin a new life…

Rose, an actress, is a narcoleptic: any strong emotion immediately gives a sleeping fit, so she cannot resume her professional career. After a car crash, she is recuperating in her husband’s care at a remote summer house in the mountains. Her husband works in the city and comes home late each night. Rose is lonely and pathologically jealous. She suspects him of having an affair, thinks she can catch him red handed, intuitively sniffs the trail of a lover. The husband denies everything but he clearly takes advantage of her drowsy state. Rose cooks him dinner and sprinkles it with henbane, which contains the truth drug scopolamine. He eats the meal, falls into a narcotic trans, and confesses to being unfaithful. For the first time since she turned narcoleptic, Rose cannot fall asleep with anxiety. She remembers that she saw her husband with a lover before the car crash. A visit with a psychiatrist makes her realise that she repressed what she saw and fell ill.

– – – – – – – – – – – –

Adam, a young doctor, is hiding his homosexuality from his parents, simple countryside folk. After graduation, he becomes an intern at a municipal hospital, making a living and coming to terms with the reality of his neighbourhood where unemployment is rampant. The local teens master the break-dance in run-down backyards. Adam and one of the local guys (Pretty) have a passionate but uneasy love affair. Adam must keep it from his parents, Pretty cannot be compromised in front of his mates. Instead of practising his break-dance technique before a contest, Pretty gets involved in pick-pocketing and rows. Until tragedy strikes…

– – – – – – – – – – – –

Robert, a writer with a block, lives with his wife in the in-laws’ apartment. He is withdrawn and introvert, has a second-rate white-collar job. He is running obsessive computations based on people’s legs he can see through the basement office window. He has a gift of seeing people and their fate by looking at their shoes, trousers, gait. The news of his terminal illness shakes him out of the stupor. Robert, who seems to have lived someone else’s life, at least wants to die his own way. He visits the local crematorium and seeks out his childhood friend who is a paraglider. He asks him for a favour: he wants to be cremated, his ashes scattered over his beloved mountains. He submits the manuscript of his last novel to the publisher. He knows that his death will be a good marketing act. He moves out of the apartment in a dramatic gesture.

The narrative tells in parallel the three stories of fatal love which finally intertwine as the characters look into each others’ fate. As a result, Rose will stop lying to herself and interrupt her conjugal fiction, Adam will come out and fight for his difficult love, and Robert will come to terms with himself to achieve the bearable lightness of unbeing…