Title: Sleeping Sickness

Director: Ulrich Köhler

Cast: Pierre Bokma, Jean-Christophe Folly, Jenny Schily, Hippolyte Girardot, Maria Elise Miller and Sava Lolov

From the start of “Sleeping Sickness,” you get a clear impression that this film will be more tedious than interesting. A German family is stopped by local police on a Cameroon highway, they ask the patriarch of the family, Ebbo Velten (Pierre Bokma), if his family have their passports. The police are looking for a bribe, but what they find is a long drawn out scene that suppose to unveil how off putting and fascinating Ebbo is, but they come up with nothing, except a small amount of money. The audience finds nothing as well, and we didn’t get money at the end of this screening. I’m sorry but finding a gun in the truck and waving it around and placing it to your temple isn’t nuance, interesting or character development, it’s for too assuming. It’s assuming that this is the moment where the audience with come along on this journey and find the characters in it well-rounded and exciting. I’m sorry to say, it did not.

The first half of “Sleeping Sickness” plays a lot like this opening scene. We get the cultural conflict between Germans and Cameroon people, their wine shouldn’t be as expensive as our wine, it just comes off as dull. Ebbo is a doctor in charge of funding a number of Cameroon hospitals with money from the West. They find no more traces of illness (Sleeping Sickness) and therefore have to leave and drop the funding. The battles between first world countries and third world countries when it comes to medicine and aid are there and apparent but it just never really adds up to anything. It is only until the second half of the film when it starts to become interesting, which is why this is slightly more positive.

The second half of this film takes a dramatic turn, it slows down to tell another story about another doctor who is part of the funding of the Cameroon hospital. Dr. Alex Nzila is a young doctor sent to Cameroon, his family’s origin country, to evaluate these hospitals. He’s young and attractive and people around him seem to be drawn to him. This charm is captivating to the audience as well. It starts off with him in Paris taking the trip back to his father’s land. Although he looks Cameroon he is more Parisian than anything. The culture class with Dr. Nzila is far more interesting than Dr. Velten’s. Nzila is ostensibly African and the Cameroon people take him at face value but he struggles to fit in. He struggles to not look like a tourist, although he is. As the film unfolds, Dr. Nzila takes a trip to a hospital in the middle of the jungle, he struggles to find his footing and is forced to perform an emergency Cesarean section, his first surgery as a doctor. He is there to meet Dr. Velten to evaluate the money spent on these hospitals.

Once there, the conflict in the first half of the film, pays off with in the second half. When the audience is re-introduced to Dr. Velten we learn that he was taken a lover and has (some what) become part of her family. The dynamic of fitting in and becoming part of something that is different from you, in other words, adaptation is explored. His relationship with her family is never really built up though. Her father seems to approve of him because he is German (white) and is a doctor, although her brothers do not. That’s all that seems to be there but it just seems to only be on the surface.

Of course, the movie isn’t plot driven but rather mood driven. The mood is effective but to what end. Nothing feels like it adds up to anything except the second half but by then, we are not invested in characters. Thematically it’s almost consistent but to what end.

“Sleeping Sickness” is screening as part of the New York Film Festival on Oct 8th and Oct 12th.

Technical: B

Acting: B+

Story: C+

Overall: C-

by @Rudie_Obias