Movie Review: All These Sleepless Nights

All These Sleepless Nights *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Michal Marczak.

Written by: Michal Marczak and Katarzyna Szczerba.

 

The documentary-drama hybrid All These Sleepless Nights plays better in your memory than when you’re actually watching it. That is because the film itself seems to want to play like a memory even as you watch it. It’s an odd film about two young, Polish men in their 20s, who drift through a series of parties and concerts, drinking, smoking, dancing, hooking up with girls, getting into and out of relationships – fighting and making up with those girls, and each other, and essentially just drifting. They are searching for answers, but they don’t really know what the question is. In a way, the film plays like a version of the films Terrence Malick has been making lately (To the Wonder, Knight of Cups, Song to Song) or a 21^st Century Polish La Dolce Vita, with less money on display. Everything is great, every night is a party, you’re having so much fun – right up until the moment you aren’t, and you sit back and realize this life is empty – perhaps it wasn’t always, but it’s gotten there for you now, and you aren’t quite sure where to head to next.

 

These are particularly revolutionary insights on the part of co-writer/director Michael Marczak – but he knows that. What he is interested in is capturing those moments as they happen, yet at a distance – as if you are remembering them, not like you are experiencing them. How that looks on screen is like everything is one long party – the camera mostly fixed on Krzysztof, Michael’s friend, as he drifts through his life. Every party both looks different, but feels the same. Daybreak seems to be constantly threatening, but never breaks. He and Michael move into together, pledge loyalty – but eventually Krzysztof starts dating Michael’s ex, Eva – probably the most sustained subplot in the film, almost an interlude or short film onto itself, documenting the whole relationship from flirtation to collapse in about 20 minutes. From there, Krzysztof keeps on going to parties and concerts, but there is something sadder from that point on – ending with a scene that if I described would sound pathetic, but is actually oddly sweet.

 

There is no denying that while watching All These Sleepless Nights a lot of this starts to run together, and eventually, you want Marczak to stop repeating himself, and get to the point already (that’s another thing the film has in common with those Malick films). The repetition is, of course, part of the point of the film – but it doesn’t make watching it all that more interesting. Still, even when the film seems to be stuck in a loop, there is no denying the beauty of its cinematography with a camera that glides almost as easily as Lubezki’s in those Malick films, albeit with less twirling. Right up until the wonderful finale sequence, All These Sleepless Nights looks great.

 

All These Sleepless Nights is an odd film – it’s kind of a documentary, but also kind of not – further blurring the lines between fact and fiction, until ultimately, it doesn’t really matter. It is not the most involving film you’ll see this year – but even as the film drifts, and you find yourself drifting a bit as well, it’s probably too similar moments in your own past – which is, of course, the point here. This is a film about being young, and remembering being young at the same time. I don’t know if it quite pulls it off – or that it would possible to pull it off, but you have to admire the effort.