A breath of our inspiration
Is the life of each generation;
A wondrous thing of our dreaming
Unearthly, impossible seeming —
The soldier, the king, and the peasant
Are working together in one,
Till our dream shall become their present,
And their work in the world be done.– Stanza 4 of “Ode” by Arthur O’Shaughnessy
Movies are quite a bit like dreams. They are stories built from the subconscious that transport an individual into a dimension of possibilities, filled with wonder, hilarity, terror, and romance — sometimes separately, sometimes all at once. Just as individuals’ dreams are subject to the experiences that cultivate them, so are movies — birthed from the creative perspective that turned them from thought into realized project. In both cases, the audience/dreamer is tasked with going on an experience from which they may leave changed, grappling with the very real emotions stirred from the illusion. This is the basis from which filmmaker Jeffrey St. Jules (The Silent Planet) forms Cinema of Sleep, his second feature which originally premiered in 2021 and released on VOD May 2025. With a pinch of Charlie Chaplin (The Immigrant) and Terry Gilliam (Brazil) and a handful of Jean-Paul Sartre, St. Jules creates a mixture that invites audiences into a tale of mystery, intrigue, and illusion, evoking the immigrant experience as a vehicle for analyzing what matters.
Getenesh Berhe as Abrihet in CINEMA OF SLEEP. Photo courtesy of Inferno Pictures.
Awakening in his hotel room, Anthony (Dayo Ade) discovers his hands covered in blood and a dead woman (Getenesh Berhe) lying beside him. Terrified and confused, he struggles with his new reality, unsure what has occurred but knowing that, if discovered, his family waiting to join him in America may never arrive as he will surely go to jail. Awakening again, Anthony is now alone in his hotel room, but if it was a dream why did it feel so real?
St. Jules layers Cinema of Sleep with metaphor and meaning in the same way our dreams often do. It begins with a cold open, revealing dread before changing locations as we observe Anthony get arrested, dragged away for his crimes while all those around him do nothing to help him as he cries out – then he wakes. The structure is intentional, meant to confuse and confound, to infuse the narrative with mystery so that the audience is compelled early and instantly to lean in as answers come. But it’s also meant to convey a specific experience that immigrants may face as Anthony, a man from Nigeria, tells those he speaks with that his intention is to gain asylum status so that he can bring his family over and they can have a better life. With the exception of the possible murder, the audience is given no reason to question his authenticity, yet, whether it’s law enforcement or his motel room neighbor, the fact that he’s seeking to move to America is, alone, seen as suspect. By 2021, when Cinema of Sleep first premiered, there was already a furious cacophony of discontent in the United States as it relates to immigrants and their so-called stealing of the country to the point that the campaign of the Trump Administration in the fall of 2024 started a lie about Haitian immigrants in Ohio eating pets. Each accusation delivered by characters with such passive aggressive (or straight on aggression) puts Anthony on his heels as this is not the country he was led to believe it would be from the films he watched as a child starring Charlie Chaplin, Humphrey Bogart (Casablanca), and others. Interestingly, from a certain perspective, St. Jules implies that Anthony is, himself, a victim of the lies told by storytellers who sold him hope in the form of movies, that goodness prevails and that the United States is benevolent and welcoming, and is made suspect number one as soon as a missing girl is reported. As the film unfolds, the question of innocence and guilt is evaluated through the lens of the immigrant experience, but is perpetually twisted, tilted, and obfuscated in such a way that even the kindest hearts start to interrogate the reality of things.
In order to maintain the mystery, let’s take a moment to investigate the language of storytelling and the way St. Jules uses actual films in place of probing the plot itself. The first film is the most obvious given the black and white coloring of the film — Charlie Chaplin’s The Immigrant. Released in 1917, The Immigrant is a story involving the character of the Tramp traveling to the U.S., getting into trouble with authorities for a crime he didn’t commit, and falling in with a woman and her mother who are likewise trying to move to the United States. On its face, it’s not only a film the self-professed film lover (Anthony) would’ve watched as a child, but it directly correlates to his current situation in which he, like the Tramp, seeks asylum but may have that brought into question by his involvement with a mysterious woman, Abrihet (Berhe). Through the course of the film, we do learn their connection, and it certainly begins as benevolent, evoking the kind of supportive friendliness that the Tramp attempted before being viewed as a thief due to a misunderstanding. Portions of the film are shown as Anthony watches television in his hotel room which he barely leaves as he waits for word on his asylum status — is the film comfort to him or is it a warning, a harbinger, of what’s to come? That’s for the audience to decide. More specifically, however, is the incorporation of Casablanca (1942), a story set during World War II involving a former freedom fighter, jaded by life yet providing means of travel for refugees who need help while struggling to reconcile his past with his present when an old flame arrives in his café. If one believes in the anti-fascism message within Casablanca (ANTIFA, if you will), likely as Anthony does, then a version of the U.S. experience will color how one sees coming to the country. Like Rick Blaine (Bogart), Anthony is being tasked with evaluating what he values, what he’s willing to fight for and what he’s willing to give up despite all of his dreams and desires. Time and again, St. Jules tortures Anthony with his dreams, twisting them into nightmares to force him to confront what he wants out of his life in order to answer the question Anthony perpetually runs from.
Much of Cinema of Sleep falls on the back of Ade (Workin’ Moms) who serves as the audience proxy on this adventure of the mind. Despite the cold open establishing a crime (or did it?), Ade’s performance is so soulful, earnest, and compelling that we long for Anthony’s innocence to be established and freedom granted from the seeming land-locked existence within the motel room. Considering the trials the narrative places before him, Ade infuses Anthony with a gentle determination, a devout desire to provide support to the ones around him, so that the crux of his character arc is the recognition that wanting to do good does not mean that good intentions will always prevail. Provided support by the captivating Berhe (Keep Breathing) as Abrihet, the woman he may have killed; Jonas Chernick (Workin’ Moms) as his perpetually-drunk neighbor Frank, seemingly testing Anthony morally and ethically with each conversation; and the two detectives, Smith and Jones (Felix Montgomery and Rick Dobran, respectively), who represent the caustic view of non-Caucasian citizens/immigrants, Cinema of Sleep becomes more than a cerebral tale of one man’s innocence or guilt, it becomes an indictment of the way the world perceives immigrants regardless of country of origin or affiliation.
Dayo Ade as Anthony in CINEMA OF SLEEP. Photo courtesy of Inferno Pictures.
One could go even deeper in a spoiler-filled exploration of Cinema of Sleep as the tale reminds of the works of filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda (Monster; Shoplifters; After Life) and borrows from philosopher/novelist Sartre, not to mention the purposefully disorienting cinematography from Jordan Oram (Spiral) which is critical to the philosophy and execution of the film. Intentional or not, St. Jules also inspires one to do homework upon the conclusion of the watch in order to better understand Anthony’s mindset and, therefore, the choices that are made throughout the film through the tale we experience alongside him. We are all, after all, citizens of the world and the notion that we’re somehow graded based on our country of origin, pre-determined of quality before a word uttered or choice made, is ridiculous and xenophobic. It’s what gets people to believe the words of grifters and snake-oil salesmen who propagate fear and division instead of offering hope, community, and unity. But maybe that concept is a dream unto itself and only found in movies. If true, this is why you’ll find people like this reviewer (and Anthony) sitting in a theater, enjoying the dream between title opening and credits end for as long as we can.
Available on VOD in the U.S. beginning May 2025.
For more information, head to the official Inferno Pictures Cinema of Sleep webpage.
Final Score: 4 out of 5.
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Categories: Films To Watch, Recommendation, Reviews, streaming
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