The dream begins in the middle of the night, the opening credits playing with only the rhythmic sound of snoring. That sound is interrupted when the woman wakes up and discovers that her husband is not sitting next to her, but sprawled at the end of the bed. As she turns on the delicate, she says in a deep and distant voice, “Someone's inside.”
Jung Soo-jin (Jung Yu-mi) lives with her actor husband Oh Hyun-su (Lee Sun-kyun) and their dog Pepper in a typical, contemporary, urban Korean apartment. The couple is expecting a child and everything in their life seems completely normal – until that night. This incredible opening is Hyun-su's first experience with parasomnia. He talks and moves in his sleep, with no memory of what he was doing when he wakes up.
Sleep is the debut feature from Korean director Jason Yu, a former assistant to Oscar-winning director Bong Joon-ho (Parasite, 2019). Told in three chapters, it’s a thriller that follows a couple trying to figure out what’s causing Hyun-su’s parasomnia. As these opening moments show, it may take more than sleeping pills or medication to aid Hyun-su. There’s something else going on in their apartment that’s going off at night.
Drawing on Korean folkloric tradition and cultural ideas around shamanism, Sleep is a gripping, beautifully crafted supernatural thriller. Yu's debut brings a modern kind of Shamanisma religion and part of Korean culture that has been ignored and suppressed for hundreds of years, but is now being accepted, according to sources a modern adolescent generation of believers thanks to social media.
The first chapter shows the daily life of a happily married couple. Yu paints a picture of marital bliss through close-ups that show a typical morning. Hyun-su lovingly preparing breakfast for Soo-jin before she wakes up, flowers on the balcony, a well-organized diary, a gigantic framed photo of the couple.
The sun-dappled montage ends on a gigantic piece of wood, with Soo-jin scribbling the words “Together we can overcome anything” on the wall. This sentiment will become a recurring motif throughout the film, as Hyun-su’s parasomnia becomes more disturbing and threatens his safety (eating raw meat, trying to jump out of a window) as well as the safety of his entire family.
Soo-jin's mother suspects that something supernatural is behind all this and suggests the couple seek aid from a shaman. Shamanism in Korean culture dates back more than 5,000 years. It occurs in founding myth Dangun, the first ruler of Gojoseon (the first Korean kingdom) and son of the ruler of heaven – a type of Korean divine right kings.
Shamanism has a long history in Korean cinema, with films such as Ieoh Island (1977) and Crying (2016) being among Korea's best. It has also featured in Connectedwhich was also released this year and features adolescent shamans trying to free their family from a curse. However, those films portray shamanism as a provincial, rural affair. Sleep brings it to a contemporary, urban setting.
In Sleep, we meet the shaman Madame Haegoong, who confirms that someone is indeed inside Hyun-su. Koreans typically turn to shamans when they have problems or have difficulty making decisions. The shaman has played the role of priest, healer, and diviner throughout Korean history.
In most cases, shamans serve clients as communicators – a kind of intermediary between the client's world and the other world where spirits and ghosts reside. As a healer, a shaman usually performs cutan extravagant and exorbitant ritual that is intended to facilitate a connection with spirit – an crucial part of healing – as is the case with Hyun-su in the film Dream.
In Sen's novel, a frustrated and sleep-deprived Soo-jin is initially suspicious of shamanism, but becomes increasingly drawn to it as medical methods fail to produce results and Hyun-su's behavior becomes increasingly unsafe.
Soo-jin’s journey from nonbeliever to obsessive believer is informed by familiar folklore related to shamanic beliefs. For example, Soo-jin comes to believe that her husband’s sleep problems are related to spirits clinging to him while he sleeps, because, as Madame Haegoong explains, “the soul becomes more pliable, and they use that to sneak into your body.”
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Such stories about death and ghosts are typical of Korean culture. In the film, the now seemingly crazy Soo-jin explains, “If [your soul doesn’t] If you ascend after ten days, you will become a spirit” and “A spirit cannot ascend 100 days after death.” [It will] “They will wander our world forever.”
These ideas sound old-fashioned and ridiculous. But the fact that a adolescent woman is falling for these ideas dovetails with recent reports of interest in shamanic beliefs among some South Korean teenagers. Some shamans attribute this interest to adolescent people who, like Soo-jin, are seeking hope and certainty in the face of instability.
Sleep is a masterfully crafted contemporary occult film, with forceful performances, including a posthumous appearance by Lee Sun-kyun, who committed suicide last year. In his directorial debut, Yu has successfully combined a gripping horror thriller with classic shamanic folklore.
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Image Source: Pixabay.com
