Dream With the Fishes

A half-crazed, mortally ill heroin addict, and a suicidal drip embark on a life changing journey in a tragic but humorous tribute to the American 70's film.
Director/writer Finn Taylor once had a close friend who was completely wild, with whom he travelled around in the US. They had a falling out and went separate ways. Taylor went to Europe but soon got news of his friend's illness. He returned and spent all his savings indulging his friend's fantasies in the weeks he was still alive. This attempt to appreciate every second, to capture every remaining moment, changed Taylor's life, and is what really started him writing. All events in the film have occurred in real life, even if all of it is not autobiographical.
His flirt with American 70's film is clear both narratively, and technically. Taylor has been inspired by films like ”Midnight Cowboy”, films with characters and situations that, according to him, are much easier to understand and relate to than the larger-than-life heroes of today, and stories that combine humour and drama in the same way that life does. Together with cinematographer Barry Stone, he developed a new photographic process to create the sharp contrasts of colour and the exceptionally dark shadows. Taylor wanted to recreate the special feel in films from the 70's rather than using today's ''cleaner'' types of film. By switching back and forth between this newly invented process, and ''normal'' film, Taylor strengthens the differences the various moods of the story. When the protagonists leave San Fransisco, the film becomes lighter to reflect the change that the trip will bring them.
Even the title is a tribute to the 70's; the phrase ''he sleeps with the fishes'', which refers to a person being dead, was coined in The ”Godfather. ”Taylor used this phrase not simply as a metaphor for death, but perhaps aboveall for rebirth, for the desire to start living again after having witnessed the strong desire of a friend to realize his fantasies before it's too late.
Angelica Tibblin Chen