Long before The Artist came around, the young Japanese director Kaizo Hayashi decided to pay tribute to Japanese silent cinema with his feature debut, To Sleep so as to Dream – nice title!
It’s about an aging silent film actress, who hires a private detective to find her missing daughter. The story is told like a silent movie, relying on stunning visuals to convey ideas, there’s also the film narrator – the benshi, plus the music to reflect the feelings.
One of the fascinating things here is, most Japanese silent films have been destroyed through the years – to give an example, the masterpiece A Page of Madness was thought to be lost for decades, until it surfaced in 1971. Even today, you won’t find that many J-silent films on DVD (some are available here).
The point is, we don’t know that much about those films. That makes Hayashi’s tribute a must-see! Read more…
