Paul Schrader's finest film to date, and firmly lodged in my top 10, this isa surprisingly overlooked and underrated gem. Often touted as a "modernnoir" movie, I really don't consider it in that genre atall.

The heart of the film is a reworking of the themes embodied in Schrader'searlier film "American Gigolo", where a man is forced to confront the factthat the life he is leading is fundamentally unsatisfying, reassess what hewants to do, find out who his real friends are and ultimately get redeemedthrough love.

Willem Dafoe's character Le Tour's journey is a slow but inevitable one, ashis drug-dealing days are numbered due to his boss Susan Sarandon (alsosplendid) "going straight". Most of the scenes take place at night (hencethe noir tag), but this is partly a consequence of the drug-dealing aspectand partly to capture the unreal mood of a man who doesn't know where hefits in to "normal" life. The device whereby Le Tour spends many hourswriting his thoughts in an exercise book, throwing it away when he fills it,then starting another one, is so strong and startling that I put aside myusual dislike of narration. The soundtrack is also excellent and fits andexpands the mood very well.

The best scene is probably the one in the hospital cafeteria, where Le Tourhas a conversation with his ex-girlfriend that he hasn't seen for a longtime - immaculately acted, tremendously understated with so many thingsgoing unsaid... The final scene, although Schrader nicked it from a Frenchfilm, and used it before in "Gigolo", is still very powerful, based on theidea that whether a man is in prison or not is completely unrelated towhether he is free.

Being familiar with Schrader's scripts for films he didn't direct, I took the $5 bin chance on "Light Sleeper". Well, I must say I am impressed, and it is easy here to identify themes in other work by Schrader. Principly what I see is Schrader is fixated with how a person's past can be an emotional trap for them in the present and future. Willem Dafoe's performance is brilliant, and is characterised by his desire to end his drug dealing days, yet not knowing how to break out of the cycle. That is all he knows to do, and it will take a great tradgedy to force him to act. It is easy to draw superficial connections between this film and "Taxi Driver", yet for me it is the insistance on slowly following Dafoe as he attempts to correct his life that is a powerful film experience. 8/10.

Paul Schrader's love/hate relationship with close to down-and-out maleindividuals living in New York City continues in 1992's Light Sleeper.Schrader casts a dim eye on most of the proceedings in the place, buthis revisiting of New York City in Light Sleeper, and whateverknowledge past you have of 1976's Taxi Driver, shows a clear fondnessfor the place; a fondness to keep going back and exploring newcharacters, operating under new situations and working with newproblems floating around inside of their heads. In Light Sleeper'scase, it is Willem Dafoe's John LeTour, a middle aged man whom dealsdrugs; meets some pretty desperate individuals in the process; cannotconnect that well with the women he wants most; is stalked by policemen and generally tries to balance his on-going loneliness with hisinability to really find his place in life.

Light Sleeper is a wonderfully down to Earth and thoroughly intensefilm. With hindsight, one might think of it as a Trainspotting withoutall the hyper-kinetic energy. The film begins, quite literally, with afocusing on a road as we flow through New York; this is beforedeveloping into a ground level documentation of life flitting betweenstreets, apartments that inhabit drug users and dealers, grottynightclubs that house further users plus hotel suites which spelldanger. The easy way to summarise the male lead we're given in LightSleeper would be a comparison to Taxi Driver's Travis Bickle, as pennedby Schrader. LeTour is a loner; he keeps a diary, although possessesbetter handwriting skills; attempts to talk and follow women he simplycannot have; and generally wanders. There is even room for thecharacters to pay reference to the rain at certain times, and itsimportance. Like Taxi Driver; the film is a gathering, only not of anindividual's visions of what's around him, but of the interactions andof the people that exist around him.

This idea is best explored in a scene set in a hospital. LeTour isvisiting the mother of a certain Marianne Jost (Delany), as anotherrelative, whilst in the intensive care room, sits asleep in a chair.LeTour walks in and sits down. The camera freezes on him sitting there,almost certain death in the air by way of the dying mother and the factthere are those he hands drugs out to whom will perish at some point inthe near future. It's only after a while that he glances over at therelative, and it's only then that the camera will slowly track left toencompass, indeed recognise, she's even sitting there. It's aninteresting touch by Schrader, and reminiscent of Taxi Driver by beinga sort of polar opposite: we see, indeed recognise, what LeTour seesbut only until HE does so first. We do not get it in that raw,unflinching and 1st person style the 1976 masterpiece delivers, but wedo get it in some manner of speaking.

Light Sleeper knows what it is and knows exactly how it wants tounfold. The film isn't a conventional thriller, of sorts, about a drugdealer and a world of crime and the interactions that go on, even if itdoes end in a conventional manner by way of a bloody shootout. Rather,the film is a stark character study of a man on the way out; of a manwasting his life away through drugs, not as a junkie – something LeTourstresses to certain people he meets, but as a dealer and that anyrelation you might have to the stuff will most probably end you up invery bad shape. As a raw character study, we pick the lead up in hislate thirties and cover him for about a fortnight. The damage has beendone; we learn of his past troubles and whatever back-story we requireby way of speech to other people, and we learn it all at regular, verywell spaced intervals.

The film's attention to LeTour's element of unrequited love in his lifeis additionally well handled, somewhat seamlessly incorporated into thetext by way of a series of nervous and unfortunate encounters. We firstmeet the aforementioned Marianne when LeTour's chauffeur driven saloonstops to pick her up out of the wet. By way of Dafoe's wonderfulacting, LeTour is juddery and the professionalism driven image that wehave of him up to this point, by way of short sharp encounters andknowing exactly what to say to different sorts of lowlifes, isshattered somewhat when he lies to her about continuing dealing drugsand screws up the whole interaction. The lyrics in the music and themanner in which the character regresses over a photo-album in thefollowing scene could have been explored and executed in a far worse-amanner. The film's remaining scenes of obsession and rejectionsurrounding these two are well incorporated into the text.

I think Light Sleeper's crowning glory is its real attention to thefiner things. There's a scene in which LeTour's consistentlyoutrageously dressed female drug contact Ann, (Susan Sarandon, freshoff a wonderful role in Thelma and Louise) who is the the person thatsupplies all of the drugs to LeTour along with Robert (Clennon), fromtheir pseudo-upper class decorated apartment, asks LeTour for a lunchmeeting the following day. I got an odd sensation after the interactionhad ended that a lesser film would cut straight to the lunch: person'A' proposes something to person 'B'; person 'B' accepts and then wecut to the rendez-vous. Light Sleeper rejects the causality, opting fornotions, interactions and ideas to rest on the back-burner whilst thelead carries on for a while interacting further with other peoplebefore the day is out. Make no mistake, there'll be no light nappingduring this picture.