SLEEPWALK

Sara Driver's first feature floats between the natural and the surreal, taking on the landscape and logic of a dream.

Set between New York's Chinatown and Soho districts, it presents a puzzle involving a computer typesetter and a Chinese manuscript that she has been hired to translate and transcribe. As soon as Nicole (Suzanne Fletcher) begins work on the document strange things start to happen, as though its tales have begun to insinuate themselves into her life. Her roommate goes bald; the Asian woman who steals the first page of the manuscript is murdered; Nicole's son is kidnapped; objects move; telephones ring by themselves; a black dog stalks Nicole.

The elegant camerawork by Frank Prinzi and Jim Jarmusch creates shimmering images that reflect the counterpointing of fantasy and reality, and Phil Kline's haunting score adds resonance to this modern fairy tale that encourages and rewards the viewer's imagination.