‘Sleep’: Bleak Story of Tormented Genius

Joseph Vilsmaier’s “Brother of Sleep” is a glorious--and gloriously over-the-top--fable of tormented genius that probably only a German could make. It has Sturm und Drang to spare as we witness a musical virtuoso flower in the most miserable and remote village in the Alps at the turn of the 19th century.

Working from Robert Schneider’s internationally acclaimed novel, Vilsmaier piles wretched excess upon wretched excess without an ounce of saving humor. Yet such is the director-cinematographer’s unstinting passion and visual panache that “Brother of Sleep” grabs you, much like an Oliver Stone movie, and by its finish is actually quite moving.

“Kaspar Hauser’s” Andre Eisermann--a master at portraying brilliant, anguished and vulnerable young men--plays Elias, whose supernaturally acute hearing inspires in him a torrent of music unleashed when he sits down at his village church’s organ. So absorbed does he become in his music that he’s blind to his love for the pretty Elsbeth (Dana Vavrova), who worships him. “You only want to play that damn organ!” she at last screams, rushing off to throw herself at a strapping peasant.

As the constantly persecuted bastard son of the local priest, Elias has been protected from childhood by Peter (Ben Becker), who loves him, if anything, even more intensely than Elsbeth. You better believe it when Peter mutters to himself, “No one’s gonna take him from me!”

“Brother of Sleep” is a red-hot caldron of overflowing savage emotion set largely in a roughhewn village created by Oscar-winning production designer Rolf Zehetbauer (“Cabaret.”) Thanks to him, costume designer Ute Hofinger and Vilsmaier himself, the film is as consistently beautiful as it is bleak. Life in tiny, ultra-primitive Eschberg is routinely brutal, and such a confounding burst of musical genius can only have cataclysmic impact upon the ignorant and impoverished community.

Yet Peter does manage to get Elias to a musical competition in the city of Feldberg, where in the local cathedral he lets loose what sounds like a thundering rendition of “The Phantom of the Opera” theme reworked by Philip Glass until its repetitions reel out of control, climaxing in an awesome crescendo, leaving a packed audience properly transfixed. It’s perhaps needless to say, but you have to be in the mood for the dizzying emotional extravagance of “Brother of Sleep.”

* MPAA rating: R, for violence and disturbing images, and for some sexuality. Times guidelines: The film depicts a brutal daily existence, a major, life-endangering fire, the burning of an individual alive and an especially difficult childbirth. It is entirely unsuitable for children.

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‘Brother of Sleep’

(‘Schlafes Bruder’)

Andre Eisermann: Elias

Dana Vavrova: Elsbeth

Ben Becker: Peter

A Sony Pictures Classics release of a co-production of Perathon Film, B.A. Film, Kuchenreuther Filmproduktion, Iduna Filmproduktion, DOR-Film (in collaboration with the Austrian Film Institute and ORF. Director-cinematographer Josef Vilsmaier. Screenplay by Robert Schneider; based on his novel. Editor Alexander Berner. Costumes Ute Hofinger. Music Norbert J. Schneider, Hubert von Goisern. Production designer Rolf Zehetbauer. Art directors Anja Muller, Walter Richarz. Set dresser Tommy Vogel. Production designers (Czech Republic) Jindrich Goetz, Petra Barochova. Running time: 2 hours, 7 minutes.

* Exclusively at the Royal, 11523 Santa Monica Blvd., West Los Angeles, (310) 477-5581.