>The Man Who Sleeps (1974)
This was really good. An accurate portrayal of solitude, depression and depersonalization. The slowly creeping downward spiral when you're erroneously convinced you're going nowhere. He really would have loved video games and scrolling mindlessly. Made me realize how much the world was produced since then that feeds off this mental state.
10/10
yes. he is literally me
>”he dismisses isolation as a radical practice, and returns to normal life.”
Heh, yeah… so relatable…
I just watched the movie, and that isn't stated or implied. That wikipedia synopsis is misleading.
I thought that name was familiar but just a bit off. It IS made by Georges Perec and based on his book A Man Asleep. as someone who reads a lot of literature I absolutely despise this story and all like it . The amount of stories from the mid 20th century devoted to absolutely nothing other than "le depressed man is bored, woe is he" is fricking untenable. Everyone gets bored with life at some point but only these (French) fricks think anyone actually gives a damn about listening to them monologue about how bored they got that one summer.
I can make a list of probably 10 books just off the top of my head that are functionally identical to this shit. Why did anyone ever pay any attention to this self masturbatory shit?
I read a ton of self-masturbatory shit but when you start jerking yourself off about how bored you are that's where I draw the line. there is not and never will be anything interesting about how bored and sad you are, you need to actually try and find an answer to the boredom to make it good and Perec does not even remotely attempt to do that, he revels in his boredom and thinks others should to.
I think a book about recategorizing your thoughts and your perceptions of your past as a means of moving beyond depression could be cool. I feel it's probably been done already in ways I haven't considered.
A big part of depression is just youth. Basking in the moments before you begin your journey of understanding, languishing beautifully. I mean it's either that or a bawd phase. Or a heavy drug phase.
yea there is a lot like that. "The Beautiful and Damned" by Fitzgerald is basically a loosely autobiographical diary for his early success years he spent doing nothing but drinking with Zelda and despite not really finding an answer at the least he damn well tries which is the only reason the book is interesting. This is the sort of stuff you're supposed to put in your depression work.
"Once upon a time all the men of mind and genius in the world became of one belief--that is to say, of no belief. But it wearied them to think that within a few years after their death many cults and systems and prognostications would be ascribed to them which they had never meditated nor intended. So they said to one another: "'Let's join together and make a great book that will last forever to mock the credulity of man. Let's persuade our more erotic poets to write about the delights of the flesh, and induce some of our robust journalists to contribute stories of famous amours. We'll include all the most preposterous old wives' tales now current. We'll choose the keenest satirist alive to compile a deity from all the deities worshipped by mankind, a deity who will be more magnificent than any of them, and yet so weakly human that he'll become a byword for laughter the world over--and we'll ascribe to him all sorts of jokes and vanities and rages, in which he'll be supposed to indulge for his own diversion, so that the people will read our book and ponder it, and there'll be no more nonsense in the world. "'Finally, let us take care that the book possesses all the virtues of style, so that it may last forever as a witness to our profound scepticism and our universal irony.' "So the men did, and they died. "But the book lived always, so beautifully had it been written, and so astounding the quality of imagination with which these men of mind and genius had endowed it. They had neglected to give it a name, but after they were dead it became known as the Bible"
You call it self-masturbatory, but I didn't feel like it glamorizes the man's detachment from life nor that it demeans those who feel like they have a place in the world and society. It doesn't paint his indifference towards the outside world as some natural conclusion for anyone with a brain. Instead he's portrayed as a scurrying rat afraid of the emptiness his own willful isolation and inaction has created. The answer is that the world will keep marching on and will not leave him undisturbed despite his best efforts. The world will remind him he's a living breathing creature observed and judged by others. He will adapt and find his place in the world or further decay until his death. Or maybe I'm giving cigarette-loving frogs too much credit.
Yeah it's not about mere temporary le boredom but lack of purpose/drive for life itself, which obviously a lot of people can relate to in 2023 especially.
A person who is bored seeks to end that boredom, while the main character of this film does the opposite of that, he only becomes even more passive and indifferent to life. The term "idiotic patience" used in the film describes it well, such lack of any drive for life that you basically end up waiting for life to go by.
While I agree that the french like to circlejerk over their own misery which mostly russians could do in a truly genuine way, this film still managed to hit a certain note which young lost passive men can relate to, especially today. And like the other anon said the film doesn't celebrate that state, in fact it condems it and shows how life elsewhere will just move on without you if you don't do something about it.
Also from a strictly film perspective it's everything what a young student film wants to be, just without the usual cringy fridge shots etc.
>in fact it condems it
welp, into the trash it goes then
It's not normal to celebrate being a loser.
maybe the movie is better than the book, it came out much later and was screen-written by Perec so he had a decade to reconsider it but the book is one of the most boring things I've ever read and one of only like 3 literary works I've given 1 star to. There are so many books that are about the exact same thing that do it a million times better
Like "The Book of Disquiet" by Pessoa or any of his poems
or "The Passion According to G.H." by Clarice Lispector
or "Romaji Diary" by Takuboku Ishikawa
or "Manazuru" by Hiromi Kawakami
if they made a movie based on Romaji Diary this board would praise it even more than Druk
>The “Romaji Diary” is Ishikawa’s diary written in Japanese but in Latin script (in Japanese it’s called “romaji”) so his wife couldn’t understand it
Based
Barring Manazuru, I've read and enjoyed the others so this will be an interesting read. Thanks for the rec.
>Le Masque (1954)
>SOMEBODY STOP ME
I feel like the mask went beyond his usual existential self in this scene; he wants to apply the brakes on the meaningless of life and his place in it entirely.
A real turning point in the film.
A fun fact, Georges Cravenne, the creator of the prestigious César Award, said that he was inspired to create a high class film award for France, their Oscar equivalent, upon viewing a re-release of Le Masque during the early 1970s. He said when he witnessed Jaques le Carré's tortured cry at his own reflection of "SOMEBODY STOP ME", he immediately thought, we need an award for moments like this, true milestones in French cinema. Le Masque's legacy truly stretches far beyond 1954.
>dude walks around having existential thoughts and is bored and disillusioned
>such depression
have you guys ever gone through actual hardship in your life or is it all just your old toys getting boring to you and sexual frustration?
>bro you can't be depressed if you didn't lost all your limbs in a war
and then you'll get surprised when you hear that your good friend who is married, has kids and all the money he will ever need has killed himself
depression isn't just a result of being poor or similar surface-level reasons which normalgays struggle to comprehend
>friend who is married, has kids and all the money he will ever need has killed himself
That's just narcissism, which is the real problem with most "depressed" people.
yeah being told my whole life that college provides a guaranteed career, being actively dissuaded from socializing, and then learning in my late 20's that socializing is how people fricking get jobs and start careers AFTER i've started a family and bought a house because "the earlier the better"
now my wife and i work our asses off just to provide a semblance of a first world existence for our kids, living in our tiny 'starter' house. my dad chose his new wife and her kids over his own. my mom and stepdad are relatively wealthy and in COMPLETE fricking denial about it, to the point where if i EVER make a comment about me having FRICK ALL and them taking 3 vacations a year, she makes excuses about debt and will cry if i press her and ask if me having no debt is just idiot moron beaviour
>boo hoo you're making me feel like a bad parent
well you can sweat out your emotions in fukcing cuba like usual while we stress over buying food one night a month instead of cooking
missed my conclusion statement:
which part of this is 'narcicissm'? feeling let down by how the first 20-odd years of my life were shaped by a comfortable lie told by two people who hate each other.
>which part of this is 'narcicissm'?
the expectation that anyone else is going to fix it for you
and where the frick are you projecting that from? if i 'expected' anyone, myself or otherwise, could fix any of this shit i wouldn't be FRICKING SUICIDAL.
my stepsister is the fricking narcissist and it KEEPS HER FUNCTIONING. every waking moment to her is a failure on someone else's part based on some outlandish narcissistic preconception. she is a "let's stay together for the kids" type as her and her husband spend every night screaming at each other while the kids are trying to sleep upstairs.
i fricking WISH i was a goddamn narcissist because then i wouldn't HATE MYSELF SO FRICKING MUCH for being too much of a milquetoast pussy to take what i want from people
because you keep insisting on being the selfless victim in every scenario, even the ones that has nothing to do with you.
care to provide some examples, c**t?
well you came tumbling into this thread, dumping your entire life story while nobody asked and threw your parents and sister under the buss to make yourself look better. Sounds to me like your parents did what they thought was best and 25 years ago, the colleges route was a very viable socio economic ladder. Their fault is in not being able to foresee that the economy would go breasts up, but it's like you're blaming them for the economy going breasts up and knowingly putting you on that path just to frick you over. I dont understand why you brought your sister up at all, sounds like she's working hard with the very same difficulties you have but you refuse to see her side of the matter and make it all about how everyone is fricking over you somehow. Like holy frick I'm just throwing the ball back and forth in a thread about some depressed, dipshit frog and you just had to onions the frick out.
And ask any psychiatrist, depressed people are very self centered because they dont have the mental or emotional energy to look outward, only inward. Alot of CBT revolves around trying to break that thinking pattern which is the primary treatment for depression. If theres any comfort, yeah it sounds like you're having a rough time and I commend you for doing your very best, but god damn stop blaming everyone else for your woes because nobody is going to fix them for you. It's the least constructive path of trying to fix difficult problems.
lol, the level of projection in this post is off the charts. do you always claim everyone else is affiliated with what are clearly your own insecurities?
Start withholding her grandchildren.
> We can’t visit, it’s too expensive, we don’t have they money
> Sorry you can’t come visit we are both so busy working…maybe we’ll get together for christmas. Depends if I get my bonus
If you failed to see the grift for what it was, you only have yourself to blame. I feel for your condition but it's just the way the life goes on.
>to the point where if i EVER make a comment about me having FRICK ALL and them taking 3 vacations a year, she makes excuses about debt and will cry if i press her and ask if me having no debt is just idiot moron beaviour
You should savagely emotionally abuse her as revenge
I don't understand why poorgays have children. And even less because they believe they are doing good by doing so lmao
>AFTER i've started a family and bought a house because "the earlier the better"
This is all on you. You definitely should have known better than this.
>BEING NOT RICH IS THE WORST OF SUFFERINGS AHHHHHH
>LITERALLY THE HELL NOOOOOOO
You dont need to be depressed to have a nice day.
>depression isn't just a result...
Sure, but in the vague terms people use depression these days means anything less than continuous content or happiness. If your life is boring, dissatisfactory, you dont have friends, you dont have any intimate relationships, you got really nothing going for you, you're going to feel the emotional consequences of that, but that doesnt mean you're depressed.
I'm just against the pathologizing of very normal human experiences and emotions all the fricking time. It's normal to feel empty and bored, lonely, dissatisfied. If your life is all that, then a chemical imbalance is obviously not your problem. That is not to say that major depression doesnt exist, but get the frick out of here with the "I dont enjoy the stuff I've dont to death for 15 years anymore, I must be severly depressed" shit, which I see way too much of.
The movie isn't about hardship. It's about self-imprisonment under the guise of escapism. He doesn't live a hard life, he lives a meaningless one.
That's nothing but an advertisement for smoking. Frick off
>look up Georges Perec (the director) on wikipedia
>Early Life
Instantly dropped
it had nothing to do with depression
great movie though
okay bro
Qui?
i watched this movie in a drunken stupor when i was going through a real existential crisis last year. for the first part of the movie i was going along with it and thinking he was pretty based.
the part of the movie when the second perspective on his state starts to be described really fricking hit me hard as i was living a truly pathetic life at this time, not doing anything but drinking away my savings and thinking suicidal ideation thoughts all day long basically.
this movie shows a guy TRYING to jerk himself off through his crisis, but his denial isn't shown until the viewer has taken his side, and is therefore ready to be proven wrong. for me i basically lived like him when i watched the movie, so when the rat part started i felt like it was aimed at me and i couldn't look away from the screen until the movie was over. for people who are in the state of the protagonist this movie can be fricking BRUTAL. you may now call me cringe and say that you didn't read my post.