Two Gates of Sleep (Alistair Banks Griffin, 2010): USA

Reviewed by Paulina Soto. Viewed at the Mann Chinese Theatre, AFI Filmfestival, Hollywood, CA.

Two Gates of Sleep, directed by Alistair Banks Griffin (Gauge, 2008) is a piece of artwork with its emptiness of dialogue. Instead of talk and dialogues he use visual images and interesting sets. He has  an eye for details and he take advantage of it by concentrating on small but yet so important items.

The nature and the silent becomes one, while two brothers are living with their mother in a cottage in the middle of nowhere. Soon the journey begins, what will become the main thing of the movie, when they find their dead mom one day. Together they begin to hammer together a coffin so they can bury her. They are dragging the coffin with their death mother through deep rivers, high hillsides and battle cold nights together. They remain strong and doesn’t allow themselves to not be discouraged.

Jack (Brady Corbet) and Louis (David Call) are doing a great work by using their, mostly, body language to explain emotions. Their cooperation through the whole movie is impressive and the brotherhood is strong. The movie had beautiful transitions, focused on details that spoke for itself. The lighting was comfortable and uncomplicated. The nature takes a big part in this movie and it wouldn’t have been the same if everything had been located in, for example, a big city or somewhere else.

I really liked this movie. Often movies allows the dialogue to take over everything, instead of letting the audience think for themselves, like this one did. Everything doesn’t have to be so obvious all the time, especially not with words. The story may be uninteresting but the rest is living art. The camera movements, cinematography, colors, lighting, editing, and even the sound makes everything go hand in hand. Though an action movie fan would be crying because of the slow forward motion and lack of sound effects in this movie. Even if the movie is a simple story about death, I felt a lot of  love in it. Love to a mother, brother and to life.