Somniloquies
Synopsis
Songwriter Dion McGregor became famous in the 1960s for narrating his dreams in his sleep. His flatmate recorded him doing so. In Somniloquies, Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel overcome the boundaries between inner dreamscapes and human bodies.
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Cast & Crew
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Verena Paravel Director, Cinematography, Editing, Sound & 1 moreVerena Paravel Director, Cinematography, Editing, Sound, Producer -
Lucien Castaing-Taylor Director, Cinematography, Editing, Sound & 1 moreLucien Castaing-Taylor Director, Cinematography, Editing, Sound, Producer -
Valentina Novati Producer -
Mike Barr Sound
The film itself has a deeply somniferous effect on the spectator, who is lulled into drowsiness through the dark, slow-moving imagery and trancelike voice-track.
Daniel Fairfax
March 17, 2017
photogénie
Sometimes erotic, occasionally repellent and most often confusing (What exactly are we seeing? Is that a bent knee of an armpit?), these bodies are as disconnected to waking life biology as dream figures that could perhaps feature in a sleep-talker’s tales. The voice on the soundtrack belongs to songwriter Dion McGregor and is recorded in his sleep – his very coherent (in a surreal way) dispatches from the dream world provide the narrative segmentation of the film.
Irina Trocan
February 28, 2017
Paravel and Castaing-Taylor have selected deep cuts from these recordings and added a layer beneath, a sort of underwater, Eno-esque ambience that accentuates the background sounds of NYC traffic on the original tapes. So that’s a superb, 73-minute remix, right there. What to do for sights? Wander sleeping bodies—not blurred so much as smudged—in extreme closeup. And that’ll be that.
David Hudson
February 15, 2017
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Verena Paravel, J.P. Sniadecki, 2010
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