Dreaming of starting a widescreen career

Mike Swanson

Most directors laugh when asked to put together a feature film with

$21,000 -- especially those who call Hollywood home.

Michael Sladek wrote and directed a deliciously dark comedy on

such a budget, and he’ll see the fruits of his penny-pinching labor

when “Devils are Dreaming” premieres Monday at the Newport Beach Film

Festival.

The 32-year-old Newport Harbor High School alumnus flew into town

this week from New York, his new home, in time for the Newport Beach

Film Festival’s opening at 7:30 p.m. tonight at Big Newport Theater.

“It seems like I’ve been waiting to see [“Devils are Dreaming”]

screen for years now,” Sladek said of his first feature film. “I just

hope people will come see and not hate this film.”

“Devils are Dreaming” is an artful movie about characters who want

desperately to be artful, especially its main character, Joseph

(Stephen Donovan). It doesn’t take long to peg Joseph as a guy who

doesn’t fit in, but has no idea he doesn’t. He’s in painful after

painful scene trying. Trying to push a play idea, trying to ask

simple questions, trying to get a girl to like him. And he fails. He

doesn’t find success until he becomes someone else -- literally.

He becomes the play director he wants to impress, a porn writer, a

husband and an office worker, all in his dreams. He goes to sleep one

guy and wakes up another, and he’s better at being most of the other

people than himself.

In between Joseph’s episodes, Sladek throws collages of anything

artful onto the screen, jumping from pictures of Shakespeare and

Oscar Wilde to orchestral performances with almost too much quickness

to quite catch what the images are.

“That didn’t go in until post-production,” Sladek said. “We

decided we had to break all his different episodes with something to

show a change was happening. I really didn’t want everything to be

explained, but something had to be there to give viewers at least a

hint that something weird was going on.”

It’s a confusing film to follow, but that shouldn’t disrupt the

viewer who’s familiar with the more independent, improvisational

film. It’s easier to follow but tougher to like near the beginning,

when Joseph and a troop of actors are shown working on perhaps the

worst rendition of “Hamlet” the world could see -- which looked like

it was being performed by drunk mimes who didn’t know they weren’t

supposed to speak.

Joseph becomes more interesting as he becomes more people, and as

he becomes more aware and frustrated that he doesn’t know who he is.

Sladek loves noted independent film director John Cassavettes’

improvisational style of filmmaking, which shows, but he

unfortunately didn’t languidly refuse to let “Devils are Dreaming”

end as Cassavettes often did with his films.

Newport-Mesa residents will also be treated to a few recognizable

sites in the film’s locally shot scenes, with Orange Coast College

and the Side Street Cafe getting substantial screen time.

“Devils are Dreaming” is a film by a once-local kid who shows

through his filming that he’s moved to New York. It’s artfully shot,

written and acted, and though it’s evident that not much money was

spent to make it, the movie’s worth much more than “Titanic” to a

film lover.

“Devils are Dreaming” will premiere at 3 p.m. Monday at the Lido

Theater. Tickets can be purchased at the box office or at

https://www.newportfilmfest.com by 6 p.m. Sunday.

* MIKE SWANSON is the assistant city editor. He may be reached at

(949) 574-4286 or by e-mail at mike.swanson@latimes.com.