(Almost) every word matters in QCinema entry ‘Sleepless’

"Sleepless" begins with the intro to B.P. Valenzuela’s “Steady.” After its build-up draws to a close, we hear almost nothing as Gem (Glaiza de Castro) gets ready to go to work after a bout of insomnia. It is the play of silence and dialogue that sets Prime Cruz’s debut film effort apart from others I have seen in the last few years.

Given its milieu (the urban setting where the main jobs left are BPO ones) and the film's other stars (one of the Roco twins, Dominic, who plays Barry), comparisons can be easily made to a film from two years ago, "Shift" (2013). But its producer, who heads the QCinema Film Festival monitoring committee, told me shortly before its debut that it was a far different film, and he was right.

 

Catch #Sleepless on these dates ???????? Will be there on the 23rd. Eyeball ng mga walang tulog. Lol. #QCinema

A photo posted by ?GDC? (@glaizaredux) on

Oct 18, 2015 at 7:40am PDT

The first, and key difference, is that Cruz and writer Jen Chuaunsu decided to highlight the urban landscape. More of the film takes place outdoors, on the streets, and shows the places against which this intimate story is set.

Comparisons aside, much of the film focuses on dialogue that highlights the subtle, with its wit lying in the way it successfully rounds out the picture it paints of Gem and Barry. One memorable scene in a convenience store is a good example of this, where a conversation reveals—among other things—what they value in life. As the story unfolds, the careful viewer is rewarded for their intuition, helped along by a storytelling ethos that aims to show as much as to tell.

There is a dialed-down emotional sense that avoids the melodramatic clichés that pervade films here that tell the same story and place emphasis on the quotidian as revelatory. Even if one knew where the story could go, there was still a compulsion to see where it would go. Like all good dramas, its feeling of relief was real, especially when one sees the story to its end.

I had a bit of a quibble with some of the more whimsical touches they took. Although I knew what they were doing when, for instance, there was a bit of animation and fantastic imagining in the first act, it could be distracting. Fortunately, when they needed to, the filmmakers let reality step in big time, as it should.

I cannot end this review without a word on the music. Valenzuela contributed at least three of her songs to this film. A key moment in the film is a sequence shot in Pasig’s Kapitolyo area, scored with the backing track of her memorable “Pretty Car,” but the use of other equally memorable songs helped accent the emotional paths of this story. I have a particular fondness for the two other songs that were highlighted in Sleepless, “Early/Late” and the aforementioned “Steady.” Her emotional honesty shines in these and her other songs, and these complement what is best about this film: a script that paints a portrait of two people who encounter each other and discover a sense of comfort in the process. — BM, GMA News

Sleepless is a part of the QCinema International Film Festival currently running until the end of this week.

Ren Aguila wrote about B.P. Valenzuela earlier this year for GMA News Online. The songs mentioned in the review can be found in her album The Neon Hour.