Brother of Sleep

The start of the nineteenth century, a small village in the Austrian mountains. Johannes Elias Alder is born a strange child and the villagers keep away from him. One day something he hears in the forest changes him: the colour of his eyes turns, and from that day on he can hear even the faintest sound. He repairs the church organ and plays it. He brings out a music nobody has heard. Elias is in love with his cousin Elsbeth and that love is not returned. In the end he reaches a decision: a person who loves does not sleep, because every hour spent asleep is an hour not spent loving. He stops sleeping. The title comes from that; sleep is the brother of death. The source is Robert Schneider's novel, a bestseller in the German-speaking countries at the start of the nineties. Joseph Vilsmaier directed. Two hours and seven minutes.