To the accompaniment of a woman's voice, we can see black-and-white images of railways, passing stations, and the interiors of trains. The woman is speaking in Swedish, softly and quietly, but what she says has painful implications. She is reading a letter in which she declares her love for the man she has always loved. To begin with, the subtitles follow the woman’s words, but gradually they start to lead a life of their own. They describe the impending encounter of two lovers who have arranged to meet on a train. The story is told three times, each time with a different ending. All the while we hear the lingering rhythm of moving railway carriages.

Sleeping Car exudes a dream-like atmosphere. All the elements in the story have their own implications, but are inexorably linked to each other. Alternating with the archive images, there are staged scenes. Apart from the text of the subtitles, which was written by the artist, there are fragments from a film by Ingmar Bergman. The various narrative layers are practically indistinguishable, allowing the past, present and future to flow smoothly from one to the other. This train journey is also about story telling and narrative laws, reworking unities of time and place in order to convey a hypnotic experience. (Montevideo Catalogue)

“Monique Moumblow's Sleeping Car (video, Canada, 2000) was also notable for its construction of a narrative of loss solely with train images and a voiceover from an Ingmar Bergman text: a moody, textured piece which sticks to one's memory and won't let go.” (Media City 7: International Festival of Film and Video - A Report by Michael Zyrd, Senses of Cinema)

 “A visually hypnotic narrative constructed on a train film with voice track borrowed from an old Swedish film and subtitles telling their own story.” (NW Festival Catalogue)

“A traveling couple speak of their trip over images of the train plowing along at full speed. The story is an appropriation of an Ingmar Bergman script and it loops upon itself getting bigger each time it is retold. The result has the feel of an anxiety dream with no end in sight for the travelers trapped within it. But thanks to the hypnotic sounds and images of the train, there's a lot more trance than trauma here. What better place to dream than a train!” (Vancouver International Festival Catalogue)

Written, Directed, Camera, Editor:
Monique Moumblow
Post-production Sound: Martin Hurtubise
Produced with the assistance of Le conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec
une co-production de PRIM, Montréal

Vtape  401 Richmond St.# 452
Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5V 3A8
telephone: 416 351 1317
email: info@vtape.org
web: http://www.vtape.org

Video Out Distribution
1965 Main Street Vancouver, BC,
Canada V5T 3C1
telephone: 604-872-8449
email: videoout@telus.net
web: http://www.videoout.ca/p>

Vidéographe
Espace Vidéographe Offiche
460, rue Sainte-Catherine Ouest, local 504,
Montréal (Québec) H3B 1A7 CANADA
Telephone : (514) 866-4727
email : espace@videographe.qc.ca
web: http://www.videographe.qc.ca

Nederlands Instituut voor Mediakunst
Montevideo/Time Based Arts
Keizersgracht 264
1016 EV Amsterdam
T 020 6237101
F 020 6244423
email: info@montevideo.nl