SLEEPING MAN (Nemuru Otoko)
Produkcions Commission "Sleeping Man"
Ahn Sung-ki
Christine Hakim
Koji Yakusho
Script: Kohei Oguri, Kyoshi Kenmochi
Directed by: Kohei Oguri
Hello, Wataru.
You came back today?
Thank you.
He is sleeping well.
Good Morning! - Good Morning!
Can I use the toilet?
There is one at the station.
No! I don't like that one.
Last night
I heard the mountains.
Sounds, people tell,
That are made by the drums of the mountain ghosts.
That's what it was called.
Exactly that sound.
Do you start again!
You and your strange old stories.
It was around midnight.
Bum, bum!
How big might this drum be?
Suddenly I had the feeling,
That they take away Takuji
Into the mountains.
And how is the son, the heir?
Oh, hello.
Why don't you get him
Back into hospital?
He is sleeping only anyway.
I know, thank you.
You are awake.
And what are you doing?
You may be right.
However ...
Don't you think?
You shouldn't talk like that, father.
How?
About Takuji.
At home he has his peace and quiet.
It's not his fault that he tumbled down.
More quiet than this,
He hardly can get.
I said, please talk that way!
However, it was so very good,
That Wataru had found him.
Most people who tumble in the mountains,
Would die there.
That year there was so much snow.
The snow stayed until springtime.
There was a bright full moon
Up in the sky that night.
It was so bright, it was,
Like it had laid down on the river banks.
Why?
Maybe the snow melted,
Because the ground was warm.
That way it had reflected the moon.
They were digging there and instantly found hot water.
They called it "Mooon water".
It was,
Like the moon god had given it
To them as a gift.
First there is winter,
Then there is spring,
Then spring goes.
And there is summer,
Years pass by,
Years pass by.
Until the day, you are back,
I will do nothing,
Nothing,
Only pray and wait,
Wait and pray,
And wait and wait for you.
Only wait and wait for you.
Stay calm, please!
The light will be back in a minute.
Keep the mouth shut, right?
Menam
Over the mountains?
Where is that?
The Premier, who had build
These roads, he was born there.
You don't understand anything, right?
It is three full hours. To the seaside.
It is nearby there.
To the seaside?
Yes.
I want to see it.
You are coming?
Yes.
This night?
Really?
Good. Then I will drink nothing.
Boss!
Bring me Oolong-Tea.
What is it?
Did I wake you up?
No.
How was this story again
With the moon and the evening star?
What?
If the crescent shows him the back,
Somebody will die.
If it opens the arms, Somebody will be born.
Wasn't it so?
Yes.
People used to say that.
I ask myself,
Why are people have bad thoughts,
When the evening star
Is close to the moon.
Isn't it like this tonight?
No.
Only the moon is so wonder-, wonderful.
Excuse me.
If he wakes up,
Please tell him, thank you.
It is done.
Tell the boss, I have finished it.
He went shopping.
Yes.
Are you from Thailand?
No.
Isn't it the Menam-River there?
Menam means river in Thai language.
Big river, more precisely.
So Menam River means
"Big river river".
It is wrong.
I understand.
I learned this in school.
It's name is
Chao Phraya in Thai.
In Japan we always invent
Our own names.
And they are always wrong.
Which others are wrong?
You be quiet.
And take the elbows off the table.
Something happened?
In Menam? No.
I am thinkiong about looking for another job.
Do you mind?
Why?
Is your job too weary?
It is not about that.
You are still open?
I am coming!
I am going.
Hello.
It must be nice,
Looking out the whole day.
And again the clothes kept on hanging
A whole day on their place.
Two times a day changing,
Out and back in,
700 times a year.
If there are ten customers Buying something a year,
This adds up to 70 times per sale.
Hangers and plastic bags mainly.
The crows must have carried it here.
Understand.
So be careful.
Hangers! As we'd be in Tokyo.
What else have you brought?
I am sorry,
That you had to come for this reason.
The tv is like a friend,
And if it's not working ...
A screw was loose
Shifted it a little bit.
It's like this with everything My son is doing.
He is doing the bare minimum and leaving again.
Come and have a tea. - Good.
Now it looks good.
Switch it off if you like.
How can you tell which one Is the right with all
These remote controls?
I've put some colour stickers on them.
What's the yellow one for?- Air conditioner.
And the red one?
Fan.
I understand.
What do I owe you?
And consider the real value.
I only fixed a screw.
Then I will pay your petrol.
No.
But I want to ask you something.
Go ahead.
I didn't went to school since long,
At that time I found a dog.
But father didn't want me to keep it.
Takuji and me went up into the mountains
And gave it to an old couple living there.
Is the house still there?
High up in the mountains?
I am surprised, you still remember that.
The old mountain cottage.
At the time this happened with Takuji,
It all came back to my memory.
All from that time.
I think we often went up there.
He was a brother of my father.
A younger brother I believe.
He was my uncle.
He was a strange guy.
He was almost 50,
When he moved to the place up there
With a blind street singer
From Niigata.
Oh, she was blind then?
That's why she was fumbling around when she was cooking tea.
They got along well.
He had a family in the village below,
You must know.
She died before him,
But he never came back down.
The cottage surely Will be gone by now.
The well wasn't working either anymore.
And Takuji had his accident there?
No, I don't think so.
Not there.
Where did he travel? South America?
He went there only to look at the mountains,
He came back And did the same thing here.
What did he do up there All the time?
Nothing useful.
Somebody from Tokyo wanted to
Find hot wells in Onosawa And open a public bath.
Takuji used to say,
The moon water would run dry.
He wanted to stop that.
Nobody would knew the places in the mountains like he did.
Why did he have that acccident then?
This is a good question.
HeIIo!
So as you have been here now,
Nobody can say, there wasn't anyone here today.
How are you doing today?
Do you know the gorge close to the forest?
On my way here
I saw somebody going there
With a long stick in his hand.
What do you think?
Wouldn't it be wonderful doing that?
Wouldn't this be a
Wonderful job?
It's true. I have seen it.
A horse fly at this time of the year?
I don't know what it was.
Something flying
And it came out of his nose.
But why did this frighten you so much?
What if, he wouldn't be asleep?
Maybe he is dead.
Probably he had a dream.
A dream?
Do you like butterflies, Ryu?
All creatures that fly,
Are the soul of something.
The insect, coming out of his nose ...
This insect is a soul too.
That soul went out for a walk.
If this happens to you, then you are dreaming.
This is not true!
No?
What is a soul?
Well, what is a soul ...
Nobody knows.
You cannot see it.
They say, inside the stomach
They have a tail for a while.
And also scales. Like fishes do!
Within those ten months
From conception to birth
They pass through the whole history
Millions of years of evolution.
Yes, that is the way.
Isn't this crazy?
The second day, after we passed Mindoro
The ship passed
A small island.
We saw the islanders
And the laundry, hunging out to dry on the beach.
Mister Yamazaki!
Isn't this blissful,
We thought, as the island
Dissapeared in front of our eyes,
Like in slow motion in the cinema.
I still remember it.
The next moment I've got thrown into the water.
War is a terrible thing, let me tell you that.
Hello.
This sounds beautiful.
Yes, it sounds beautiful.
Now I am baking them.
Is it clay?
Yes.
I am getting it in the mountains.
And this?
Takuji gave it to me.
It is coming from afar.
How are you doing?
Where are you from?
Fine, thank you.
And you?
Very good.
Hello.
School is over?
The school theater obviously.
School meeting,
Municipal secondary school of Hitosuji
Sir! Sir!
Forgotten it?
Tami?
Right!
Didn't I grow old?
Both of us.
It is not sports day,
But somebody said: "Ready, steady, go!"
A pistol shot, and we were running.
But behind us somebody shouted
"False start! False start!"
We all slowed down
And went back.
Except Takuji.
And that's the way
I always will remember him.
Yes, that was him.
You know,
The first years, as a teacher,
I had to smile,
Only thinking about children,
Even at home during dinner.
But now it's all over.
It is surprising, how it
Became so shallow.
Have you always been an electrician?
Your father's business?
Don't be stupid.
My father wasn't an electrician.
He used to be a painter for porcelain.
He was very clever with his hands,
That's why he became an electrician after the war.
He hardly was at home.
Now and then he came back
And send me to town,
To buy cables.
Then he burned away the isolation.
Why?
The shops gave it to me,
They believed he would be going to pay.
And then
He sold the cables.
I understand.
That's the way it was, wasn't it?
"I've been hiking
On a dry mountain peak,
When I met a native woman
With her kids in tow.
Suddenly,
I have no idea why,
I was breaking out into tears.
They never stopped again."
Did you write such letters
To your friends?
It is very difficult
To hvae a son, Takuji.
I don't have the slightest clue,
What was bothering you
Or where you have gone lost.
Is it cold in Korea, Where you are coming from?
In winter time sometimes
You feel the cold right in your bones.
And in spring time?
Spring time ...
Have you seen the dolls?
That's only for girls.
Those are beautiful dolls.
I go vist the old man.
Don't say that!
The old man?
An old man,
Still working in a water mill.
Ryu likes him.
In my dream
I was five years old.
All trees belonged to the company.
Sometimes the poor people
Stole one.
A whole family
Took a huge stock of a tree ...
Dreams are a strange thing.
Of course.
That is because,
Life has no meaning.
I lost my kid
In a river.
They'd cut down all trees.
Then there was a flooding.
He would be roughly
The age like Ryu.
Wouldn't it be beautiful,
To be as quiet and peaceful as Wataru?
It is
Only by chance,
That Ryu lives with me now.
But no matter, whatever
Stupid things people are doing,
Spring always will come after winter.
The sleeping man.
The sleeping man?
Yes.
Mister Takuji
Is the sleeping man.
He is eating in his sleep.
He is eating?
Yes.
His mother gives him soup.
With a little pipe.
The trees are wearing no leaves in Winter time,
And still they are not dead.
And this town
Is not dead.
Only sleeping.
It is spring time, you know.
Yes.
Tow cats, both black as a crow
Sat on a roof in a dark night.
On the top of the their tails
A crescent hung like from a thread.
Meow! Good evening!
Meow!
Oh ...
The master of this house
Is sick.
Oh ...
The master of this house
Is sick.
Shut up.
Stop your yelling and shouting.
Kids belong to bed this time!
Which direction now?
Shouldn't we on our way back by now?
Let's go a little further.
Did Omoni tell you about Tia yet?
Who is Tia?
The woman from the tropics.
Oh that one! I like her.
I wonder wether what she said,
Is only true for her island.
What do you mean?
If somebody you like, goes there
You should tell him to come back soon.
Yes of course!
No, I don't mean that.
The island intensifies
Feelings in a weird way.
Maybe some sort of a magic spell.
If somebody falls in love with you there,
You cannot leave any longer,
Even if you yourself
Haven't fallen in love.
This should be considered carefully.
Look.
There are the mountains,
And here is the town.
People are living everywhere Wherever you look.
Isn't this idea blissfully,
Somebody might be watching you,
And you wouldn't know?
Suika?
In moonlit nights
The cuttlefish climb the beach
And look for water melons.
Really?- No.
I hate cuttlefish.
I love water melons.
Damned!
And I thought you like them.
That's why my room was so damp.
The board was rotting away, the sun came shining in.
I still can't believe this.
The tree had been cut down,
When I went to second grade.
That is over 30 years ago!
Is it possible for a stump To surive for more than 30 years?
Did it grew from another seed?
Look at this.
It is growing right out of the stump.
A new seed may have been dropped next to it.
And how did it come through the floor boards?
I really don't care.
What should we do now?
Cut the floor.
We have to repair it.
We need the room.
My father cut this persimmon tree,
To build me a room.
I don't want to cut it.
What? You always hated your father.
Hey, that's not true!
Please don't argue.
Tell me what's going on with our relationship.
Do you love me? Do you still love me?
What's going on?
My father is coming. Quiet!
Where is the doctor?
He just left.
What did he say?
It seems thta his heart is growing weaker.
And you have been
Taking such good care.
He might have to go back into hospital.
If this would make him wake up,
I would bring him in this second.
Mother!
What?
Takuji's soul just left.
Takuji!
We have to call it back.
How?
She is coming back,
If you call his name.
Takuji!
Good!
Make noise. Make a lot of noise
If we make noises, he will come back.
Fetch a ladder. Get up on the roof
That's the way, it will take.
Takuji!
Take a tile away.
Then he can hear us.
So he went ...
Looks like it.
Should we go? - Yes.
Takuji
Sleeps in the mountains again.
Yes.
Somewhere.
"I open the morning papers today
Looking for the weather forecast.
No other article
Is of any interest to me.
Why
Can a weather forecast
With its prognosis of pressure areas
Shake me to the very foundations?
And then ...
Article about the flowers of the season."
"Why is any change
And movement of things only serving,
To make my grief worse?"
What is this?
They found Takujis notebooks.
It's about time.
Yes.
A car takes the saltcollector's
Buckets away
And also takes
All the grief of the world,
While it is dissapearing.
While I seave the tides,
I am looking and see a moon
Here in my bucket!
In mine too a moon
Has crept in.
How lucky I am!
Here is another moon.
A moon on the top,
Two reflections on the bottom.
Noh touches us because it mixes
Dream with reality.
The world of the dead
Talks to the one of the living.
"Matsukaze" is a ghost
In this piece.
Forgotten by the grief
On the saltlake street
All the sadness of this world,
Where our souls are stuck.
Where to I get from here,
If I go straight on?
On the other end of the forest
There is another village.
Thank you.
Omoni!
Tia is not back yet.
Where did she go?
She went to the No-theatre
And hasn't returned.
They are worrying in the club.
What are you doing here?
And you
What are you doing here??
Takuji ...
Is a man
Something big
Or something small?
Good morning, Wataru.
Good morning.
Isn't the water here
Getting warmer lately?
That could be.
Where did you come from?
Tokyo.
I see, you are from Tokyo.
They didn't come here
Lately.
The girls from the tropics.
Right, now that you are mentionning it.
Maybe they went home.
Yes, maybe.
Where did they go to?