Scanning Sleeper

Woody Allen co-writes, co-scores, directs, and stars in the 1973 science fiction comedy Sleeper. Sleeper is about a man named Miles Monroe(Woody Allen) a neurotic health food store owner who goes into a comatose state after a small ulcer surgery in 1973. He was then put into a cryogenic state for 200 years, he awakes in the year 2173 only to discover the world is run by an oppressive dictator and he has involuntarily become a fugitive associated with an anti-government group known only as "The underground". After a raid on some of the underground Miles barely escapes and ends up disguising himself as a helper robot. This is where he meets the dimwitted poet Luna Schlosser (Diane Keaton). They go on the run together and after Miles is captured by the security police its up to Luna to free him from their mind control so they can bring down the evil dictator for the underground.

I was surprised by the style of Sleeper. The only way I can describe the films style is...a mix between Woody Allen's neurotic rants on 70's culture and a jazz tribute to silent physical comedy films with a little bit of Buster Keaton influence mixed in. The mix of these elements provides for an entertaining film and showed off a side of Woody Allen I had never seen before with his physical comedy. The film mainly focuses on a lot of cultural references to the 70's and Woody going on long often uninteruped rants about about the reference usually relating it to his childhood. The best part about this is that all of his rants seemingly fall on deaf ears. Everyone in the future has no idea what he is talking about, they give him blank stares as he just goes on and on. He seems to only be doing it to amuse himself since no one of real intelligence seems to be around.

Sleeper is a very funny movie with a lot of clever ideas. I would probably enjoy it more if I had more than just general knowledge about 70's culture. There is a paticular scene where Miles is being shown "artifacts" people from the future have collected. Except for some obvious pictures I didn't really know a lot of the people or things he was ranting about, stuff like this is a focal point of the movie and there are many similar scenes to this one that left me in the dark. This was not a problem, because like I said ridiculous physical comedy is present throughout the film. All in all Woody Allen works with his low budget very well and presents a funny satirical work in an inevitable future full of idiots.