“Sleeping Beauty” directed and written by Australian
novelist Julia Leigh is a haunting allegory of awakening in close proximity to
death. Lucy (Emily Browning) is a young college student floating through life
in a fog of indiscriminate jobs and relationships. Underpaid and struggling, by
random draw of luck, Lucy discovers an ad in a college newspaper for a
mysterious job seeking attractive women. Under pretenses of silver lining
waitressing, Lucy is drawn into erotic and lucrative world of sex services.
Sex, in this instance being used elusively given the main rule of the club is
no penetration. As Lucy gets drawn further into the unnervingly mysterious
farce of the job that caters to aging aristocrats, she no longer is solely
asked to flow around the expensively catered dining rooms in lacy underwear.
Her icy madam, Clara (Rachael Blake) raises the stakes by offering Lucy to go
further – succumb to the narcotic-induced sleep at Clara’s mansion. Even though
as viewers we are exposed to most of what goes behind the doors of the
luxuriously appointed bedroom, we cannot shake off the chilling feeling of mystery.
Instead of explicit celebration of sexual desire found in the blatant
exploitation of female form, we are left with the opposite - witnessing the
mourning and loss of lustful mastery and complete paralysis of eros.
One of the
most fascinating scenes in the movie is one client’s monologue describing a
short story he had recently encountered. In this story, a man who had lost all
desire for life and its pleasures, dead inside, finally awakens by surviving a
nearly fatal car accident and witnessing his driver’s death. This experience
brings the protagonist back to life, giving him sensation of the world that he
was numb to throughout his life. This story becomes a symbolic backbone of
“Sleeping Beauty” culminating in Lucy’s struggle to find out what goes on when
the Morpheus sets in and putting her face to face with death and, thus,
spiritual awakening. Lucy’s hysterical cries in the closing scene contrast with
serene pace and detached expose of director’s camera and in many ways signify
the first grasps of air by a newborn baby…rebirth and resurrection.
Did I love this movie? – Not particularly. In many ways, it
was painful in its slowness and incoherent in its plot line. However now, days
after I have seen it, it continues to haunt me, raising questions and
questioning its allegories. Oftentimes, if a movie makes me think continuously
about it way past the closing credits, it raises new awareness and proves that
it managed to surprise… and astonishment is rare these days…
