Survey of German Film  

Minutes for November 28, 2001 – Discussion on Winter Sleepers (1997) by: Tom Tykwer

Winter Sleepers, directed by Tom Tykwer, is about a translator named Rebecca who lives with her boyfriend Marco, a ski instructor, in a mountain house owned by her friend, Laura who is a nurse. Rene steals Marco's car and gets into a car crash with an old man named Theo, whose daughter is almost killed. Rene suffers from partial short-term memory loss and starts a relationship with Laura. Meanwhile Marco is looking for the man who stole his car and Theo - for the man who nearly killed his daughter. These characters all seem to be connected somehow throughout the film. This film was an emotional drama with some romance.

During the class discussion we talked about the roles of coincidence in this film. Tykwer often uses coincidence in his films to create a domino effect and to make relationships between characters. There are many incidents in this film where coincidence takes place such as the scene when Theo finds Marco the ski instructor as he is searching for a girl he is having an affair with who got lost in the fog of the mountain. Theo thinks Marco is the man he got into the wreck with so he wants to seek revenge on him. Theo says, “You killed her!” (his daughter) he is in denial that he caused her death. Then Marco says, “Are you crazy I didn’t kill her, it was an accident!” While he was saying this he was talking about Nina the girl he was searching for. This encounter with Theo makes Marco feel even more guilty for Nina’s disappearance. This made Marco go over the edge by taking his own life as he carelessly skies off the mountain. Another scene that is a coincident is when Becky is driving and stops to pee and she ends up peeing in Theo’s yard. A minor coincidence occurs near the end of the film when Nina the girl Marco is having an affair with sits across from Becky his girlfriend on the train. We also discussed how Tykwer uses coincidence in other films of his such as Run Lola Run.

Color symbolism plays a major role in Winter Sleepers. Becky is seen wearing red throughout the whole movie. Her room has many red objects and even her car is red. The color red symbolizes lust or means flirt or uncontrollable. Becky translates romance novels for a living so the color red is very appropriate for her character. Laura being green symbolizes sickness. There are two occasions in the movie where she passes out and she deals with sick patients because she is a nurse. The color green also follows her during the film like when she goes to the bathroom of the club when she feels sick the walls are green. The darkroom in which Rene uses has a green tint in the lighting to tell us that he has some relation with Laura. The colors red and green are complimentary colors on the color wheel that means they are opposite; Becky and Laura have different personalities. Marco is purple or blue, this means he is cold and lonely. This color follows him as he kills himself diving off the mountain flying into the blue sky.

Rene wears blackish brown dark earthy colors this refers to his short-term memory or black outs. Brown is also a nature color like green so another symbol of how Rene and Laura relate to each other.

The title of the film is appropriate because all of the characters are oblivious to their connections with each other like they are unconscious or in a trance. There is also a lot of death in this film and before Theo's daughter dies she is in a coma which is a deep sleep.

We also talked about birth replacing death theme in the film when Marco dies you hear Laura and Rene’s baby crying symbolizing rebirth creating a cycle.