J'ai pas sommeil (1994, France/Switzerland)

A long and understated (and confusing) film centred on Daïga, a Lithuanian girl who arrives in Paris in an old car with no money. She hopes to get a job as an actress, but we know that this is not likely to happen. She ends up working as a cleaner in a small hotel run by a friend of a friend.

Meanwhile elderly ladies living alone have been getting killed by thieves, and we eventually see that Camille (Richard Courcat) and his boyfriend are the perpetrators. Camille also does a fetishy drag act at a club; we don't see very much of this side of things, and critics' reports that he is a transvestite in the ordinary meaning of the word are erroneous.

Many separate strands of plot come together, more or less, towards the end of the film, but you need to concentrate hard to get much out of it.

It has been released under the English title I Can't Sleep, and also I'm Not Sleepy.

HF March 2007

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