Review: Hayashi Kaizô’s To Sleep So As to Dream on Arrow Video Blu-ray

To say that Hayashi Kaizô’s To Sleep So As to Dream is an ode to silent cinema would be too simplistic a summation. Indeed, the film unfolds much like a silent film, as Hayashi uses intertitles and minimal dialogue to dramatize a bumbling pair of detectives trying to solve the case of a missing woman. But unlike, say, Michel Hazanavicius’s The Artist, which views an era of filmmaking as a cute fetish object, Hayashi’s film is a mediation on how technological advancement often outpaces the human spirit, which not only leads to feelings of anxiety but also trauma.

While the film’s themes are heavy, its tone is altogether slight, which is itself part of Kaizô’s stylistic sleight of hand. As the film opens, private eye Uotsuka (Sano Shirô) and his sidekick, Kobayashi (Otake Koji), are eating hard-boiled eggs and learning that a woman, Bellflower (Kamura Moe), has disappeared. The setup borders on parody in its marshalling of hard-boiled tropes, but To Sleep So As to Dream is much stranger than those of other neo-noir pastiches of the era. For one, the grafting of silent-era aesthetics onto a crime-film narrative exudes a curiously elusive effect that only heightens once Bellflower’s disappearance is linked to the M. Pathe film studio, which was active during the early years of movie production in Japan.

Throughout, fact and fiction meld into a dream-like procession of imagery that could have been plucked directly from the silent era. Close-ups and insert shots emphasize facial expression and emotion, and while characters only seldom speak, when they do, it’s as if the film is emerging from its cocoon and morphing into a different creature altogether. Audible language becomes surprising and exciting when it’s withheld and scarcely employed. In fact, part of what makes To Sleep So As to Dream such a singular work is its suggestion of rebirth through cinema, particularly in how it allows actors a certain immortality.

Bellflower, it turns out, is the daughter of Madame Cherry Blossom (Fukamizu Fujiko), an aging silent movie star, and based on the clues left by the kidnappers, it seems likely that Bellflower is actually trapped within the reel of a silent ninja film. Is Bellflower a real person, or is she the manifestation of Cherry Blossom’s desires to return to her youthful state?

Hayashi amplifies the film’s surrealism in a third act that’s largely set during the exhibition of silent films, so that we become uncertain if Uotsuka and Kobayashi are still within the film’s world, or if they have entered into the film within the film. The answer, of course, is both. To Sleep So As to Dream conceives of cinematic images as a form of logic unto themselves, and so its characters, initially disconnected from such logic, are revealed as always having been cinematic. Everything is cinema when it’s on the screen, and it’s in this sense that one trace Guy Maddin’s work back to Hayashi’s own—for the way that they resurrect the ethos of silent cinema to consider how contemporary contexts, sensibilities, and dreams can be shaped by it.

Image/Sound

While this is a 1080p HD transfer rather than one using 2K or 4K technology, the black-and-white images still appear luminous and free from defect. Depth of field and pristine clarity of images is present throughout, while contrast proves balanced and consistent, especially during sequences set outdoors. The original, uncompressed mono soundtrack does a commendable job of handling both the film’s minimal dialogue and intricate sound design.

Extras

Arrow Video has given this remarkable film a deservedly robust slate of extras. There are two feature-length audio commentaries. The first, featuring director Hayashi Kaizô and actor Sano Shirô, was recorded for the Japanese DVD release in 2000. It’s a light and affable chat between the two about their recollections of the production. According to Hayashi, “I had no idea how to make a movie. I watched Akira Kurosawa’s Stray Dog about five times.” On the second commentary, film scholars Tom Mes and Jasper Sharp approach To Sleep So As to Dream through a historical lens, namely by situating it within the context of the broader scope of Japanese film. “The ’80s have been given short shrift in Western writing about Japanese cinema,” one of them says at one point, and they do an excellent job filling in that gap.

A half-hour interview with Sano, conducted in 2021, gives the actor a chance to reflect even further on his involvement with To Sleep So As to Dream, while an interview with Sawato Midori, who narrates silent films at screenings in Japan, reflects on the art and cultural context of such performers, known as “benshi,” in Japanese silent cinema. In another supplement, Sawato provides narration for the final reel of the film-within-the-film, The Eternal Mystery. Rounding out the release is a brief featurette on Hayashi’s supervision of the restoration of the original 16mm negative, a selection of scenes from silent jidai-geki films from the Kyoto Toy Museum archives, and the film’s original and re-release trailer.

Overall

Hayashi Kaizô’s To Sleep So As to Dream, an overlooked gem of 1980s Japanese cinema, makes its way onto Blu-ray with a stellar image transfer and robust slate of extras.