{"id":24499,"date":"2022-03-22T23:55:19","date_gmt":"2022-03-23T06:55:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cinemastance.com\/?p=24499"},"modified":"2022-03-22T23:55:19","modified_gmt":"2022-03-23T06:55:19","slug":"blasts-from-the-past-blu-ray-review-to-sleep-so-as-to-dream-1986","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/?p=24499","title":{"rendered":"Blasts from the Past! Blu-ray Review: TO SLEEP SO AS TO DREAM (1986)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This Blu-ray from Arrow Video is currently available from\nretailers. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As many readers will already know, motion picture cameras were first introduced in the 1890s and quickly became a phenomenon. By the turn of the century, moviemakers from around the world were producing elaborate silent narrative films – these productions would surge in popularity over the following decade. Japan produced plenty of movies during this era. Enough, in fact, to inspire writer\/director Kaiz\u00f4 Hayashi to create To Sleep So as to Dream<\/em>, a homage to early cinema from his home country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This independent feature was a critical success, playing\nnumerous film festivals around the globe and ultimately taking home numerous\nprizes during its year of release. Like many international arthouse features, as\nthe decades passed it became harder and harder to track down. Arrow Video are now\nreleasing a Blu-ray of the film for the first time in North America. As with\nother titles from this fine distributor, the image quality has been restored and\nthe disc includes numerous extras that will enlighten and entertain anyone with\na taste for world cinema. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shot in black and white, the movie follows egg-obsessed detective\nUotsuka (Shir\u00f4 Sano) and his assistant, Kobayashi (Koji Otake). With no jobs on\nthe horizon, they are approached by a mysterious old man. He hires the two quirky\nmen to locate a kidnapped young woman named Bellflower (Moe Kamura), whom the elderly\nfigure says is the daughter of an aging movie starlet Madame Cherryblossom (Fujiko\nFukamizu). The two investigators quickly head out to determine who is responsible\nand why. To get to the bottom of things, they are forced to deal with the kidnapper\nand solve various riddles, meet some eccentric characters and also make their way\nto Pathe studios. As things progress, events get even more surreal and the pair\nunsuspecting find themselves stepping inside a celluloid swordfight feature and\nhelping complete an unfinished silent movie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It’s all very unique material that is driven by the filmmaker\u2019s love of early cinema. In fact, the entire movie is shot and edited just like a silent feature (with the occasional music or sound effect added to emphasize a specific moment). The story doesn\u2019t exactly make a lot of clear sense from a narrative perspective and the clues given to the detectives are likely too cryptic for western audiences to decipher. Regardless, this film is fun, looks absolutely stunning and moves at a quick clip. A shot pointing upwards of the heroes racing up a set of tower stairs is beautiful to witness, as is a sequence set in a carnival among various amusement park rides. Even simple establishing shots of the protagonists driving up to a location chomping on eggs look stellar. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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There are also plenty of fun sight gags throughout that pay\nhomage to silent film. This includes several amusing shots of the two leads\neating hard-boiled eggs (implying that they are trying to be hard-boiled themselves).\nParticularly entertaining are the cutaways inside Kobayashi\u2019s head as he reacts\nto things like a big potential payday and other unexpected news. And, the movie\nalso delivers a sweet and warm-hearted payoff as the case is solved and the client\nsays goodbye to the detectives. The entire movie has a dreamy quality that is\nalways engaging. It\u2019s an effective exercise in nostalgia and recreating cinema\nfrom an earlier era. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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As mentioned, the picture quality on display is quite stunning. Despite being shot on 16mm film, the movie looks incredibly sharp and crisp on this Blu-ray. One of the extras follows Kaiz\u00f4 Hayashi on his visits to the Japanese lab to see his film properly restored by experts. It likely looks better here than when it played in cinemas. There\u2019s also a great interview with lead actor Shiro Sano and his experience on set. He talks about his start in the industry (this was a very early role for the well-established performer who recently had a significant role in Shin Godzilla<\/em>) and notes that he was intrigued and excited enough by the concept to team with Hayashi, who was an unknown first-time director.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The commentary track (recorded back in 2000 for a Japanese release) with Hayashi and Sano is extremely entertaining. Hayashi helps fill in some of the gaps about his movie and details the references to early Japanese silent film. He and Sano also fill in some incredible details about the production. Apparently, the movie was made for very little money. No scenes were cut from the finished feature and the performers rarely had the opportunity to do more than one or two takes. The director mentions just how hard it was getting anyone interested in the picture and how the director of photography was really the only established crewperson. He openly admits that the lighting and camerawork was instrumental in making the movie a success. Sano also comments about all the eggs on set and how sick he was of eating them during the shoot. It is a great listen from beginning to end. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is also a new second track from a pair of Japanese\nfilm experts. It is also informative, with the two going into detail on the careers\nof those involved both onscreen and behind-the-scenes. Additionally, they\ndiscuss others difficult in making the film. The 80s were a decade in which\ndistributors simply didn\u2019t want black and white pictures, feeling there was no\nmarket for them. A black and white silent movie was an almost impossible sell. They\nalso make note of and lament the period as an interesting era in Japanese\ncinema, but one that seems to have fallen by the wayside by home video distributors.\nMany fascinating films from this decade are not easy to find and this title\nmarks a welcome effort to remind people of many quality pictures that have yet\nto find a Blu-ray release.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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You\u2019ll also get fragmented bits of footage from several Japanese\nsilent pictures made around 1915. It\u2019s also fascinating and remarkable to see\nhow close the footage shot by Hayashi resembles those efforts.  The disc includes an interesting interview\nwith co-star Midori Sawato, who discusses early cinema from the country and her\nwork as a \u201cBenshi\u201d or narrator for these pictures. There\u2019s even an extra in\nwhich she narrates the climax of the movie. And if that wasn\u2019t enough, there\nare trailers for the movie, an image gallery and a reversable sleeve that\ncontains new artwork for the movie. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In all, this is another fantastic disc from Arrow Video. To\nSleep So as to Dream<\/em> is a wonderful and nostalgic homage to the early days\nof Japanese cinema. The discs bonuses are really exceptional in giving viewers\nmore information on the production and details about the very special silent\ntitles that inspired the movie. For arthouse and Japanese cinema enthusiasts, this\nBlu-ray is well worth picking up.     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This Blu-ray from Arrow Video is currently available from retailers. As many readers will already know, motion picture cameras were first introduced in the 1890s and quickly became a phenomenon. By the turn of the century, moviemakers from around the world were producing elaborate silent narrative films – these productions would surge in popularity over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":24505,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[119,1836,2570,2923,2928,3073,5777,9266,10386,11418,18282,18392,18395,22960],"class_list":["post-24499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dvdblu-ray-reviews","tag-119","tag-arrow-video","tag-benshi","tag-blasts-from-the-past","tag-blasts-from-the-past-blu-ray-review","tag-blu-ray-review","tag-detective","tag-homage","tag-japanese","tag-kaizo-hayashi","tag-shiro-sano","tag-silent","tag-silent-film","tag-to-sleep-so-as-to-dream"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24499\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinemastance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}