Lovers Sleep Alone

Those who sleep have no need to explain who they are. Perhaps that is why 33-year-old Iman watches the lorry drivers behind their windscreens at night: men who, for a moment, find the peace he himself lacks. Years ago he fled Iran, broke with his family and now lives in Berlin, between two jobs as an elderly care worker and a labourer at a lorry wash. In the park he meets a man for fleeting sex. By day he invents stories about his life. When his cousin Maneli comes to visit from Tehran, a crack opens in this carefully constructed loneliness. They talk, go swimming, sleep in the forest – a closeness that asks for nothing.

The Iranian director Massih Parsaei turns his feature debut into no conventional exile drama, but a study in the art of staying invisible. In a surprisingly wintry Berlin, the film creates a dense atmosphere of alienation with long, detached shots that now and then recall the early films of the Berlin School. The city becomes the second main character. People walk side by side without ever meeting; strangers’ conversations accompany his aimless wanderings. “Lovers Sleep Alone” asks how a person can begin anew when even freedom is still inhabited by old fears.