A woman tells her story. She can't sleep. She works in a sushi shop in a seaside city. We see fishing boats arrive, fish sorted and sold at market, then chopped and boxed at the factory. At her shop, live fish swim in tanks. She's tired. She tries various methods to break her insomnia, none are successful. Late one night, two weeks into her ordeal, she rides her motor scooter at top speed into a realm of discovery. Will sleep and insight be of help? BAFTA winner
“Naoko” is a young woman who works in a sushi bar, lives above the shop and hasn’t had a decent sleep for over a fortnight. Increasingly desperate, she takes her moped out late at night and ends up through the crash barrier and into the sea surrounded by the still alive ingredients of tomorrow’s lunch. She is struck by the fact that they, too, are all wide awake. Perhaps they fear to sleep in case they are caught? In any case, a mermaid she doesn’t prove to be and so fairly soon she is also harvested from the water and placed on the chopping block… Will she end up on a plate, too? I thought this all a rather basically crafted and repetitious animation that did showcase just a little how a lack of sleep can effect a person, but little of that thread is really developed as we watch the fishing industry working at full tilt. Is that the critique Gaëlle Denis really wants to deliver - the relentless plundering of the oceans? The depiction of “Naoko” is shapely but rudimentary and apart from her the whole film has an industrial look to it’s production that I didn’t love, sorry.