Digging into private life of murder victim

Separating the real person from the image was the focus of Rebecca Daly’s directorialdebut film The Other Side of Sleep, Don O’Mahony reports

IN the arresting opening scene of the new Irish film, The Other Side Of Sleep, a young woman, Arlene, awakes to find herself lying in a forest beside the murdered body of a girl.

That this girl, wrapped in blankets, appears in repose sets the tone of dream-like eeriness that permeates the film, but she also becomes a source of fixation for Arlene, a chronic sleepwalker who is working through grief of her own against the backdrop of parochial, small town life.