Ula Stöckl - Sleep Of Reason

Festival Participation

14. Internationales Forum des Jungen Films, Berlin 1984
30. Festival Cinematografico Internationale
di Messina e Taormina, Italien 1984
29. Semana International de Cine de Valladolid,
Spanien 1984
20. Chicago International Film Festival, 1984
Film-Ex Los Angeles, 1984
Museum of Modern Art, NY, 1984
6. Biberacher Filmfestival, 1984
"Women and Film", Goethe House, New York, 1984
Centre Culturel Allemand, Lyon 1984
6. Festival International De Films De Femmes,
Sceaux/Paris 1984
Festival International de Films et Videos, Montreal 1985
Frauen Kultur Woche Oberhausen, 1985
Australia-Europe-Cultural Crossroads,
Lasting Values and Limitations, Melbourne, Sydney,
Brisbane, Perth, Seattle 1985
Hollins College Roanoke Virginia, 1986
Goethe Institut: Brüssel 1989, Tunis 1990,
University Austin Texas
9. Festival International De Cine,
Realizado Por Mugeres, Madrid 1993
6. Münchener Frauen Film Tage 1994
Werkschau Babylon, Berlin 1995
1. International Women Film Festival, London 1996
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For days the books have been proofread in Dea's flat. Dea, gynecologist and scientist, and her colleagues have for the last few months been preparing a campaign against the local pharmaceutical industy.

A campaign, which is linked to Dea's published findings concerning harmful side effects of the pill. For years Dea and her husband Rheinhard have been defending opposing sides as to the culpability of the company.

Rheinhard, who is also a leading scientist like Dea, is a high-ranking employee of the concern. In the meantime Reinhard and Dea's 2 daughters have grown up. The daughter of the company's boss, Johanna, is Dea's assistant and Reinhard's lover.

Dea's elderly mother, who also lives in the house, becomes ever more stubborn in sticking to her guns. She is supported by Dea who agrees with her, but undermined by her granddaughters, who want to live differently.

Dea's theory that she lives in a world in which any minute unforeseen tragedies can turn daily life into a nightmare becomes reality: the man she loves tells her that he is going to leave her for Johanna.

The more she thinks about why certain things happen in life and not others, the more Dea sees all events as an unavoidable pattern of cause and result. In her mind this can only be changed by radical decisions.
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The Film

01: Interview Merker/Stoeckl
To be translated
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Press

01: The story is quite straightforward: a man leaves his wife for a woman who will not criticize him.
Heidemarie Strauch, Zitty Berlin, August 1984
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02: The development is fascinating, as it offers in its own way a productive answer to the new German zeitgeist at the time of the fall of the Wall. An answer discovered in the fabric of our dreams, away from concepts of Good and Evil, Right and Left, which have traditionally influenced our society. It could be that with the help of cinema, we can dream of setting up a new environment of the senses and of experience.
Michael Kötz, Deutsches Allgemeines Sonntagsblatt, 04.03.1984
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03: Sleep Of Reason by Ula Stöckl (...) is the subtle self-determination of one woman, who represents all women: the fight of Dea, representing Medea the goddess, against the rest of the world, against her unfaithful husband, against her immature daughters, against society's lacking comradeship and against the entire pharmaceutical industry.
Wolf Donner, Tip Magazin Berlin, July 1984
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04: The dialogue between the two of them, their timid tenderness, their softness, their uncertainty or resoluteness, their rebelliousness, their proud fighting spirit, their erotic charisma, the sudden destructive grief, that is all wonderfully human and credible. It is all acted and directed with great internal tension.
Karena Niehoff, Der Tagessiegel, 22.02.1984
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05: This is an exemplary piece of sexual psychology, which is made with much tension.
Hans JÜrgen Weber, Film-Echo, 01.03.1984
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06: She learns (...) how to survive the death of her feelings, her beliefs, her uncertainty, her desires and her love. She learns and emerges from all this with her eternal values intact.
Christa Merker, Film, Frankfurt, March 1984
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07: When Dea cuts her husband's throat on the white sheets, it isn't clear whether this is wish or reality.
Caroline Fetscher, Der Spiegel, 07.05.1984
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08: The representation of the subtle mechanisms of repression, played out between the three contrasting generations of women, and the shrill contrasts embodied by the beautiful main character give the film openness and turn its poetic black and white pictures into a magical and hermetic cinematic world. Volker A. Nenzel, Hellweger Anzeiger, 29.10.1984
Ponkie, Abendzeitung, 09.07.1984
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09: "Sleep Of Reason" doesn't make it easy for anyone. Not for men, who should see the film as a reason to rethink behavior. But also not for women, who should see that film gives no reason why they should be misunderstood as oppressed or as heroic.
Hollow Skai, Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung, 09.11.1984
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10: A pessimistic, emancipating play, which is enacted with a rigorous moral, rigorous emotions and a rigorous aesthetic. At the same time it is also decidedly personal, not easily accessible and wild with archaic pathos.
Hubert Haslberger, Hellerweger Anzeiger, 30.07.1984
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11: The qualities of Ula Stöckl's film lie in the way in which it reveals very complicated experiences, although this means that one problem after the other is unearthed. (...) A radical and explosively aggressive film.
Ponkie, Abendzeitung, 09.07.1984
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12: "Sleep Of Reason" is undoubtedly a piece of real cinema, which through controversial experiences, gives a deep insight into the women's lives. Wolfram SchÜtte, Frankfurter Rundschau, 24.02.1984 13) Nevertheless, "Sleep Of Reason" is not a "women's film" in the usual or misunderstood sense of the word, but rather in the sense that it illustrates the intellectual and emotional world of women, their particular sensibility.
K.H., Berliner Morgenpost, 06.04.1984
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13: Nevertheless, "Sleep Of Reason" is not a "women's film" in the usual or misunderstood sense of the word, but rather in the sense that it illustrates the intellectual and emotional world of women, their particular sensibility.
K.H., Berliner Morgenpost, 06.04.1984
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14: In this film the viewer is given new perspectives. Instead of the usual, second-hand images, the viewer is provoked to act and react.
Heiko R. Blum, Spectrum Spezial, March 1984
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15: In a similar but different way to the events of 1968 Ula Stöckl risks everything, even failure (...) In the dreams and visions at the end of the film, where Medea kills her daughter, she succeeds where others would have failed.
Wilhelm Roth, Film, Frankfurt, March 1984
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16: It is true that tragedy no longer descends with the same force, as was once the case in the Greek sagas. But the pain, which it causes, has remained the same.
Peter Buchka, SÜddeutche Zeitung, 04.06.1984
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17: What would usually be the material for a emotional melodrama, how the thought patterns and resulting behavior of men affect and rule female relationships, has been transformed by Ula Stöckl into a cool study.
Harald Schuren, Aachener Nachrichten, 29.10. 1984
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18: Relationships between women decay as long as their lives are governed by a man - the daughters are governed by Mr. Average, the mother by an imaginary man, the saint which she prays to, Dea herself has built Reinhard up to be the "one and only", her "life's meaning". Therefore she is forced to attack the other woman: "What does she have over me?". "Nothing at all," he answers, which is true because in reality there is only one person who he takes seriously: Johanna's father, his boss, the "respected opponent".
Pieke Biermann, Tip Magazin, March 1984
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19: Is there not another beautiful murderess? She is called Dea, is Italian and lives like Medea in a foreign country, which we call our own. Her Jason leaves her for Johanna, who is related to him. She is also estranged from her daughters, who like Medea's, are her stepdaughters. This woman (Ida di Benedetto) kills them all: the daughters, the rival, her own mother, herself. And yet that is only a dream of a myth, which she must fulfill, because her break-up didn't succeed. Not even feminism helps, as that just defines the problem and makes it harder to bear. By dreaming of death, Dea is striving for a life, which can find its justification in peace rather than destruction.
Peter W. Jansen, Die Zeit, 29.03.1984
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20: Conflict between the generations, the coming together of languages and cultures and the failure of "masculine" panacea's to solve women's problems: these are the themes which Ula Stöckl brings into her love stories.
Colosseum, Neue Presse, Hannover, 09.11.1984
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Crew

Cast

Festival Participation

Contents

The Film

Press

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