Fritz Fuchs will keinesfalls einschlafen. Und das hat seinen Grund: Merkwürdige Diebstähle geschehen nachts rund um den Bauwagen. Ob der schlafwandelnde Nachbar etwas damit zu tun hat? Um das herauszufinden und um sich wach zu halten, konstruiert Fritz Fuchs eine genial-abstruse "Bleib-wach-Maschine". Die funktioniert zwar, doch leider zu spät - zu einem neuerlichen Diebstahl kommt hinzu, dass der ansonsten topfitte Bauwagenbewohner unendlich müde ist. Wie kann man das verhindern? Denn eigentlich ist Schlafen sowieso eine Riesenzeitverschwendung, oder etwa nicht? Fritz Fuchs macht sich im Schlaflabor der Bärstädter Klinik schlau.
Die Folge der Reihe "Löwenzahn" beleuchtet das Phänomen des Schlafs.

Schlafen macht uns fit, leistungsfähig und kreativ. Aber warum wir schlafen, ist letztlich immer noch ein wissenschaftliches Rätsel. Der 3sat-Thementag "ausgeSCHLAFEN" beleuchtet dieses Thema aus verschiedenen Perspektiven in zahlreichen Dokumentationen und Spielfilmen sowie einer Ausgabe von "nano spezial". Katrin Bauerfeind moderiert den Thementag aus einem eigens für sie eingerichteten Schlaflabor - und erfährt am eigenen Leib, was passiert, wenn der Mensch keinen Schlaf bekommt

One program included Prof. Peretz Lavie from the Sleep Research Laboratory
of the Technion Israel Institute of Technology at Haifa

"Articles Search The Lavie Sleep Library is a collection of close to 17,000 reprints of papers on dreams, biological rhythms, and other sleep-related subjects. It originates from the year 1971, when Peretz Lavie was a PhD student in WB Webb's sleep laboratory in the University of Florida. It includes a large number of reprints and papers from the pre-electronic journal era, and historical papers, some dating back to the 19th century.

About the lab and its team in Hebrew:

Peretz Lavie, Prof. Technion sleep-lab
"Sleep is the great equalizer,
when we are awake we are different,
when we sleep we are all equal
I can tell you how many times you'll dream, for instance,
it will be the same for everyone "

Review
Le Septième ciel is characteristic of Benoît Jacquot’s individual style of cinema, a compelling portrait of troubled yet seemingly ordinary individuals who find themselves driven to the edge by events beyond their control. The plot references to mysticism and Oriental healing techniques are reflected in the film’s unusual style, which manages to combine an acute sense of realism with hazy dream-like asides. This conveys a very palpable sense of disorientation, allowing the spectator to see the world through the eyes of film’s two lead characters, and hence form a tangible bond of attachment with them. This is what cinema should be about - discovering inventive new techniques for communicating with an audience without obviously subordinating the film's content to cinematic style.
Although low-key and largely uneventful, the film has little difficulty sustaining its audience’s attention. This is in part down to its unusual visual style (which offers a refreshing variant on the psychological drama genre), but also because of the exceptional performances from its lead actors, Sandrine Kiberlain and Vincent Lindon. Kiberlain, renowned for playing unconventional strong female leads, is perfectly cast as Mathilde, conveying both the absurdity and tragedy of her character’s predicament in equal measure. Vincent Lindon is no less impressive and it is the strength of his performance, forceful yet restrained, which makes the latter half of the film so compelling and poignant.

One of Benoît Jacquot’s most striking and unusual films to date, Le Septième ciel is a work that appears to defy analysis but yet appears to say so much about contemporary life. In its depiction of a married couple experiencing an inexplicable domestic rift, it is convincing yet also strangely mysterious. Although superficially very simple, it soon becomes apparent that this is a film with hidden depths, where the divisions between comedy and drama, between reality and fantasy, are subtly blurred, and nothing is really quite what it seems.

© James Travers 2002

From an interview with Benoit
It’s with the upper-middle-class wife Sandrine Kimberlaine in La Septieme Ciel/Seventh Heaven, that women start to fight back.

.....In this film, it seems that characters say some very bizarre things upon meeting others, like, "Do you have orgasms?", what people might not normally say so quickly, and the audience laughs.
If you are very attentive, you can hear very strange things in life. Also, though it’s not a good answer: the dialogue occurred to me, so it could happen. But I do like familiar situations with strange things in them, like fairy tales, the German idea of "the uncanny." I like to film that. My narrative form is "the tale." I try to film bizarre tales.

.....Q-What does your title mean?
I don’t know if it has the same connotation in English and French. In French it has a sexual connotation. When a man and woman go to "seventh heaven," that’s a sexual accomplishment.

Q-Is this film autobiographical? The husband feels like a very strong man until his wife becomes strong, and then he is threatened.
It’s not autobiographical but something I feel in general about men and woman. In a way, I live in the opposite condition from these people. They are married people, I’ve never been married. Unlike me, they have a place they go to work every day at the same time. I wanted to film people very far from me but who are acted upon in a way that anyone can experience.

Q-Is the husband missing something?
He’s blind. That’s why I wanted him to be a surgeon, someone passing his days opening bodies. He believes everything can be cured or fixed, just like the motor of a car. He can’t see what she’s trying to show him, but I do think he loves his wife.

....Q-The wife, Mathilde, seeks a cure through going to a hypnotist. And you?
I’ve never experienced it, though I’ve seen people hypnotized and I was very impressed. I chose hypnosis to be in the center of the film because to me there’s a very obvious analogy between cinema and hypnosis. When you pay your ticket to go into a dark room and be immobilized in a seat with a light behind you and a screen in front of you, and you have to forget the world outside, you are exactly in the position of hypnosis. You are asleep and awake at the same time.

Q-So is it a deficiency in the husband that he can’t be hypnotized?
At this time, he can’t do it. Maybe at a later time, he’ll be able. I think if the film was continuing, his wife would hypnotize him! (Laughs)