You won’t believe what you got yourself into when you enter the kaleidoscope of mental illness that is the found footage experimental meta-horror movie We Put The World To Sleep, directed by the certifiable Adrian Tofei. Written by Tofei and Duru Yucel, it opens with a streaming website on which several strange films are available. An unseen viewer moves the arrow to We Put The World To Sleep and selects it. We are introduced to Adrian (Adrian Tofei), a Romanian filmmaker, and his wife, Duru (Duru Yucel). Adrian and Duru have decided to end civilization as we know it, and film their modest attempts to accomplish that.
They partner up with Andreea (Andreea Enclu), a hacker, to help bring down the system. Andreea is in a panic, as she has stolen information from the CIA about a secret android program they are running. As Adrian and Duru dig deeper into global destruction, they find evidence that they are stuck in a movie, playing characters instead of themselves. They begin another movie, one in which Adrian confines himself to a room filled with images of Richard Ramirez, the famed “Night Stalker” serial killer of the 80s. Adrian begins to have revelations, wondering if he is a murderer himself, trying to escape his atrocities through pretending it’s a movie.
The hook that keeps you watching We Put The World To Sleep happens early on, while everyone is getting introduced. The screen suddenly brings up a woman who is half covered up in a bed sheet and is screaming. A pink caption against a black backdrop comes up, stating that this was a woman Adrian chopped up for his earlier picture, Be My Cat (which is also an actual production by Tofei). The causal reference to snuff filmmaking, with victims being murdered onscreen, glues the viewer to the proceedings. It helped me stay in the saddle throughout, despite there being no real action, no special effects, no budget at all, and scant production value outside of the room decorated to the ceiling with pictures of Richard Ramirez.
“As Adrian and Duru dig deeper into global destruction, they find evidence that they are stuck in a movie…”
Say what you want to, but We Put The World To Sleep is brimming with lots of big Philip K. Dick energy. Tofei and Yucel question reality right down to the nub in a hundred different directions. There is lots of rumination over what is really behind all of the facades that litter perceived reality. That this is done in a fake documentary format makes it all the more intriguing, as the found footage format itself is a perversion of reality. In a lot of ways, this is like The Young Poisoner’s Handbook meets WeirdLoop, the ladder being an experimental franchise of films dealing with conspiracy theories in Eastern European accents while high on weed. FYI, as with many WTF experimental features, high on weed is an excellent way to engage with We Put The World To Sleep.
What really was surprising about this movie was how densely plotted it was. Instead of babbling into a camera until our foreheads bleed, Tofei and Yucel built an intriguing scenario with some genuinely clever twists along the way. You still go down several rabbit holes of endless existence questioning, but there are speed ramps to get you launched into them. I also have to commend Tofei for managing to get the audience to a very terrifying place in the finale, but also having the good sense to finish all the grim business with some great tongue-in-cheek in the coda. You would never guess that from the brown paper wrapper surrounding We Put The World To Sleep, which is, namely, its utter lack of anything vaguely marketable. It’s not much to look at, but it is one heavy head trip. Some freaks will like it; this one did.
Learn more at the official We Put The World To Sleep website.
"…brimming with lots of big Philip K. Dick energy."
