One year ago, I posted the trailer for a really cool looking indie film called The Perfect Sleep. It's a hard boiled noir mystery that features plenty of action and martial arts in it. I hyped it up when it was still touring the festival circuit, but then didn't really hear about it again until recently when the director Jeremy Alter got in touch to let me know that they finally have distribution.
Not only that, they also have a new site up and a new trailer. I urge you guys to take a looksie.
Synopsis:
Think of the hard-boiled world of film noir: the world of Dashiell Hammett's Sam Spade, a world of femme fatales, a world of shadows. Now imagine this world populated with characters from tragic Russian novels like those by Dostoevsky: tormented figures suffering through harsh circumstance. This unique world provides the foundation for the dark and vivid dreamscape of The Perfect Sleep.
In a timeless city, a man with no name returns to the violent, brutal domain of assassins he left ten years before – back when they dubbed him The Mad Monk for his disregard for his own life and his intense devotion to one woman, Porphyria; a beautiful, luminescent woman; the girl he grew up with; the love of his life; the one thing he has ever wanted; the one thing he can never have.
There is no discernible reason for him to come back to this ruthless city, save one. She still lives here, she is in danger, and he – a man gifted in the art of killing – may be the only one who can save her. Waiting for him are deadly men who would like nothing more than to see him die a painful death. Standing at their forefront is the formidable Nikolai, the man who raised him and just might be his father.
To protect Porphyria, this unnamed man will return to a life of torment and torture. He will face off against the father figure he turned his back on so many years ago. He will revisit this existence full of people imprisoned by their desire, their history, and their very blood; a world where the only thing keeping you from happiness is yourself, the world of The Perfect Sleep.
Sounds like what a good, non-gimmicky approach to Sin City would have been like.
The film opens today at the Sunset Laemmle Theatre in LA, with tentative expansions later to New York, Chicago, Dallas, and Portland. Viddy the official site here. If it's playing in your area, do check it out.
