Brother of Sleep

Brother of Sleep is the adaptation of the novel by the Austrian writer Robert Schneider from 1992, which in the film also has a small role as a coachman.

Action

Elijah will come in the lonely mountain farming village Esch at the beginning of the 19th century to the world. Even his birth proceeds with difficulty, because the midwives shall be brought only in spite of heavy rain from the village. And also heart sounds can be heard in the new earthlings only after the midwife sings a piece from the Te Deum. The music was so placed him in the truest sense of the word in the cradle. Elias seems to have perfect pitch. The school choir sings with elves voice accompanying lines that are not in the score - his teacher first shows for little understanding.

But Elijah hears voices everywhere equal vision. The only one who will have access to it, is the young Elsbeth, who falls in love him. Much to the displeasure of Elsbeth's brother Peter. It is less concern for his sister, who drives him to jealousy, but Peter feels attracted to Elias.

Production history

The film was produced in 1994 at the locations Gaschurn in the Montafon, Vorarlberg and St. Anton am Arlberg in Austria as well as in Kutná Hora (Czech Republic).

When André Eisermann (already known for his role of a Kaspar Hauser filming at the time) heard that Joseph Vilsmaier wanted to film the novel, he pressed the director so long that he was the right choice for the Elias until Vilsmaier finally gave in. According to the statement of Vilsmaier Eisermann had trouble because he sometimes still fell back into the role of Kaspar Hauser during the shoot.

Reviews

" Brother of Sleep has cost 15 million, looks twice as expensive and speculates on a cross-over - namely, literature lovers, and friends of the late movie and home - the dull violence in defiance - Nature Loving and Dorfnostalgiker to lure the movies. Mountain Ash is a shithole, the pub a dark dive bar - nevertheless meets here Walter Benjamin's observation that there is a kind of poverty to stage photographs, which refines the picturesque misery ".

" The very first scene of Joseph Vilsmaier film" Brother of Sleep ", which draws the viewer as if by magic in the archaic microcosm of this testimony from foreign time is a synonym for the extraordinary and become rare in German cinema efforts with those of the best-selling novel Robert tailor its visual correspondences should be established. "

" A film adaptation of the successful novel by Robert Schneider, who never finds a cinematic equivalent for the subtle and complex narrative structure of the template. With extraordinary external costs a showy large-scale production, the inappropriate simplifies the fable and reduced to a double- failing love story was born. "

Awards

  • Nominated for a Golden Globe
  • Bavarian Film Award, the producer price
  • German Film Award in Gold for Alexander Berner, in silver for Joseph Vilsmaier
  • Austrian Film Prize 1996
  • Nomination for the Golden Shell at the San Sebastian
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