Borderline Films: The First Ten Years 2013 / Two Gates of Sleep / USA 2010
Brothers Jack and Louis live with their seriously ill mother deep in the woods on the Mississippi-Louisiana border. The unthinkable one day becomes the inevitable, and the animalistic young men, communicating primarily through fleeting glances, decide to fulfill their mother’s final wish. Influenced by Faulkner and the masters of spiritual film, this debut was screened to success at Cannes in 2010.
Brothers Jack and Louis live with their seriously ill mother deep in the woods on the Mississippi-Louisiana border. The fleeting glances to which their taciturn communication is limited are enough to convey the palpable tension between the men. But they temporarily suppress their differences as they seek, during her last days, to make the woman who bore them as comfortable as possible. The inevitable happens, however, one quiet afternoon and the two brothers know that they must respect their mother’s final wish rather than bow to social convention. So they set out with a crude, homemade coffin across swamp and impenetrable wood. "Visually captivating” is an over-used collocation but it suits to a T this meditative portrait of a family living literally on the edge of society. The compelling story provides an indirect commentary upon the transience of the physical, and also – in all its immensity – the unfathomable spiritual aspect of nature. The movie thereby aligns the director with the great world filmmakers of the 1960s and beyond, and also with similarly "tending” contemporary directors such as Lisandro Alonso and Apichatpong Weerasethakul.
78 min / Color, DCP
Director Alistair Banks Griffin
/ Screenplay Alistair Banks Griffin
/ Dir. of Photography Jody Lee Lipes
/ Music Saunder Jurriaans and Daniel Bensi
/ Editor Alistair Banks Griffin, Brady Corbet
/ Producer Josh Mond, Andrew Renzi
/ Production Borderline Films
/ Cast Brady Corbet, David Call, Karen Young
/ Contact Re-Creation
www: www.twogatesofsleep.com
Alistair Banks Griffin (b. 1978, Basingstoke, UK) grew up in New Orleans and then relocated to New York. He is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design where he studied painting, film, and art history. In 2008 he debuted in shorts with Gauge, first screened to the public at the New York film festival. After a successful showing in Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight, his feature debut appeared in the program of numerous festivals and museums. In 2007 he cofounded a modern art gallery in New York going by the name of Fake Estate.
Re-Creation
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Antonio Campos
Film Director
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