Lit and shot in a manner that allows dimness to completely envelop the majority of each long take, so that the focus on the landscapes & the exploration of space feels like you're observing the remnants of an isolated or even forsaken region. The cocoon of darkness that the life exists within is so murky that it's less reminiscent of shadows & earthly lowlight, and more reminiscent of a distant location in which earthly sites sprout from deep space; a galaxy trapped somewhere between ourselves and an inky infinity. For me, this is a science fiction film, through and through -- a portrait of an Earth, or an adjacent reality, that has become alien, invaded not by extraterrestrials but by a slow, persistent decay. A knowledge that, eventually, the nightfall will become permanent and places such as these will only exist in the memories of a blind universe.

we may, potentially,
have a motherfuckin'
master in our midst;
one of the best final
shots I have ever seen.

(will try to write more,
still reflecting for now)

"Like those apparitions that lurk, then dance with us, that disarm us, seduce us even, as we turn our necks, and stare back down the path we tread, and into the dark, beyond the trees, I too, want to disarm, and seduce through rendering the invisible..."
- Scott Barley

It's pretty great. I felt quite scared watching it since I always get very unnerved by dark stillness. It kind of feels like a horror film boiled down to its natural elements, there's an uncanny otherworldliness thanks to the absence of anything tangible. It's like a world devoid of people but not devoid of evil. I really like how the images bleed into each other, which is very eerie, and there are points where it kind of feels like heaven and hell coalescing, or nature taking back its power, or something. It's very rhythmic and transfixing, so much so that my mind began playing tricks on me at points and I kept thinking I saw things in the image that I don't think were actually there. I will watch it again.

Mit Sleep has her house von Scott Barley gleich eine wahre Perle erwischt.
Lange nicht mehr ein so schönes narratives Spiel mit Farben und "Nicht-Farben" Licht und "Nicht-Licht" gesehen, die fließenden Übergänge, der unvermittelt einsetzende Schnitt, der einem aus der Szenerie reißt und sogleich wieder in die nächste Sequenz eintauchen lässt.
Bekannte Muster und Umgebungen lässt Barley nur erahnen um gerade sie in ihrer Unschärfe schließlich als Fixpunkt zu verwenden.
Er kehrt die Farben und Lichter um, löscht sie nicht, dimmt sie nicht, erschafft damit ein gänzliches neues Universum aus Bekanntem.
Eine sehr schöne Erfahrung

Here, darkness is the image. Anything that emerges out of that darkness might as well be pure fantasy. Slivers and tendrils of things we once knew become skeletal fragments of another world where time does not obey the rules of either the cinema or the life we know. Sleep has her house in this non-time - a world caught between transitory states. I, too, didn't know if I was awake or dreaming for the most part.

And then that final shot happened, and I was very, very much awake.

i am most awake when trying to sleep.

it is nighttime in the woods. it feels cold although the coniferous trees’ thick foliage bears no indication of the season

there is a sentient world beyond the human one, that which lingers beyond the visible after dimness envelops that which coheres to the waking brain

an illuminated waterfall bifurcates the image; it is intense and slow moving, it appears as crack in the material of the screen. the light burns into my mind’s eye before the next image is fully formed. one phase overlaps another, whether intentionally or not

break of dawn, ochre from the behind the tree tops. heaven descends

have you ever spent the whole night outdoors anticipating this moment?

there are some terrible things to come

i am left without shelter, shivering in the rain. SHHH is akin to a spiritual experience

first time i watched this was at 2am
halfway through, a loud flock of birds flew by
i thought the sound was part of the film

Mesmerizing. I'll echo what I've heard is Barley's own recommendation and say that the best way to watch this is in a very dark room with headphones. I had a bit of trouble finding a copy, but for anyone else looking, it's available on kinoscope.org with a 14 day free trial as of this writing.

Though it sometimes touches on sort of delicate moody moments of introspection, this thing just doesn't justify the runtime for me.