In this short from Greece, a man wearing nothing more than boxer briefs hangs around a bland hotel room watching TV and, ahem, otherwise amusing himself. He flips through the channels, and seems to also be flipping through the digital video effects programmed into his camera (most likely substituting the camera’s remote control for the TV’s).
Director Bill Belaskas is, it seems, the entire cast and the entire crew. It looks like he’s the only one controlling the camera when, for example, it mechanically zooms in on him lying in bed (more remote control trickery) as the word “No” flashes on screen, and when it then zooms back out, flashing the word “Yes.” In particular, the scenes in which he sizes up his hairy, but otherwise unremarkable, body in the mirror look like he set up the camera himself before stepping into the shot.
Despite not regressing into complete exploitation (Belaskas mercifully cuts to a closer shot of his face as he’s “doing the deed”), “Sweet Dreams” is a video that is about nothing more than the filmmaker exercising his “power” over the medium and the audience. Though on several occasions I’ve accused films of being masturbatory, never before have I meant it on so many levels.
