Sleeper |
  • USA • 1973 • 89m •   • Directed by: Woody Allen. • Starring: Woody Allen, Diane Keaton, John Beck, Mary Gregory, Don Keefer, John McLiam, Bartlett Robinson, Chris Forbes, Mews Small, Peter Hobbs, Susan Miller, Lou Picetti, Jessica Rains. • Music by: Woody Allen.     Miles, a nebbishy clarinet player who also runs a health food store in NYC's Greenwich Village, is cryogenically frozen, and brought back - 200 years in the future, by anti-government radicals in order to assist them in their attempt to overthrow the oppressive government. When he goes off on his own, he begins to explore this brave new world, which has Orgasmatron booths to replace sex and confessional robots.
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Let me explain this. Allen explored as many areas as Kubrick at the dawn of his glorious and so prolific career. He made a political pamphlet like "Paths of Glory", a film set in an oppressive dystopian future like "A Clockwork Orange" and a picaresque war epic à la "Barry Lyndon". Granted "Bananas", "Sleeper" or "Love and Death" don't compete in the same categories than the movies I mentioned, yet they all make speak some significant truths about our own humanity. Kubrick denounced the danger of technology, greed, power, politics, from their dehumanization effect, Allen uses humor to highlight their inner absurdity when put in the same equations than what matters most in life: sex, love, life itself and naturally, death.
Allen's intelligence has nothing to envy on Kubrick except it's more appealing in the way it subtly lies underneath the cream-pie humor. And after watching, I mean, experiencing "Sleeper": Woody Allen's take on the Sci-fi genre, I knew that Allen was the greatest comical director of his generation, standing above Mel Brooks, Benny Hill and Monty Python for his unique capability to enthrall us with the simple process of thinking. You could tell that all the "Bananas", "Sleepers" and "Everything You Wanted to Know About Sex" were all leading to a much higher summit of intelligent craziness (or crazy intelligence). And "Sleeper" is only one little step below "Love and Death", which doesn't make it any less enjoyable.
So, Woody Allen is Miles Monroe, a jazz clarinetist and sympathetic owner of "Happy Carrot" Health Food shop, subjected to an unwanted cryopreservation, he's awakened 200 years later, in 2173 in the kind of future that would make anyone miss a year like 1973. One hilarious moment involves a scientist who concluded after watching footage of Howard Cosell's TV program that it was used as penal punishment. The laughs go on when Miles is asked to give some insights about such distinguished gentleman as Charles De Gaull, Joseph Stalin and Tchangaitchek, the comments were so funny I was almost disappointed that it didn't include a picture of Hitler. Maybe that was too risky but how about that guest in the socialite party wearing an outfit with a Swastika, that called for a reaction ... never mind.
Stranded in an unwanted but so existent future, Monroe's comments on his 200-year lethargy provide some of the most delightful pieces of verbal humor. When Diane Keaton, as Luna, a socialite girl, asked him how is it feels to have had 200 years without sex, he specifies "204, if you count my marriage", he also assumes he should be collecting social security at that time, this is how so 70's, he's still hooked up in his mind. But he has to deal with a police state, where not only he's alone, but he's the only one without a biometric record, hence his choice by a group of doctors to join an underground rebellious group and prevent a secret plan known as 'Aries Project'. Allen is an average schmuck who ran a rather purposeless life and gets caught in the middle of a rebellion where he becomes the chosen one.
That's the core of most comedies: an ordinary guy in an extraordinary situation, but the Allenian twist changes everything, the guy is more exceptional than any other around him. At a time where sex has become ensured by a convenient machine named orgasmitron, when joints have been replaced by a weird ball with inexplicable sexual effects, when men and women believe in free love, Monroe's all intellectual material is getting shaken up, but resists nonetheless. And after admitting that he didn't believe in God, because it's too distracting, or in science because it's too restricting, he reaffirms his attachment to the only real things that count in life: sex and death, death even has an edge because it's rarely followed by nausea. If the conclusion seems sentimental, it's still the wisest response to the whole non-sense brought-up by the world and the proof that besides comedy, Allen has also a talent to create great romances.
And beyond the undeniable 'makes-you-think' merit of the film, it's also an opportunity to enjoy pure Allen's slapstick, something that goes on the same level than the pioneers such as Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin, with a daringness that only he can get way. His catatonic state in the beginning might only inspire some timid chuckles but it goes on and on, until it gets desperately funny. From him trying to pass for a robot in a van full of other robots, trying to disguise as one, but can't do without his trademark glasses, hence Luna's desire to have a 'more aesthetically pleasing' one. Allen's robot-walk and his struggle with a giant pudding with a broom is, no pun intended, the icing on the cake. The rest involves a chase on the air, and on-the-water where he still find the opportunity of a good joke "I hate you", screams a hysterical Luna, "don't get too upset", calmly retorts Monroe.
And of course, there's the great reinvention of the banana peel gag, you can see it coming but the way he exploits it only belongs to him. By the way, Allen has unique talent to find the right comical word, the 'banana the size of a canoe' foreshadows some classic "Buick" line (not surprising that comedic screenwriters advises to use words with the sound 'k', for their humorous impact).
So between the sleeper over 2 centuries of dehumanization or the slipper over a giant banana peel gag, you have the two polar facets of Woody Allen between which he's able to express his comical talent to its fullest.
Review by ElMaruecan82 from the Internet Movie Database.
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