They are after you. You are not even sure if it is 'they' or 'it', and this does not really matter either since you realise that you have no other choice but to run. So you run. And you are too imbued with fear to think about what exactly you are fleeing. As they are dark, you cannot really see them. As you cannot really see them, you don't know where to run. Because they will have no mercy, you know you will run regardless. Although every direction brings you closer to the inescapable. As they are unpredictable, you have no refuge. Breathless, you run up the seemingly endless stairs of a lighthouse, knowing they will follow you and there is nothing but a dead-end up there. They come closer and closer, with every step, almost grasping your heel, almost capturing your soul. And then you wake up.

Usually. But what if wakefulness is only a reality more ruthless than a nightmare? What if it does not make sense any longer to open your eyes, because there is no solace in dawn either? What if the same dream of no escape becomes the only escape that one has? As in 'Somnambuul'.

STILLS FROM THE MOVIE. DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY: REIN KOTOV

As for a young woman, Eetla, who struggles through the autumn sea back to the shore after having got off the last boat to take her away from the inevitable fate she faces at home. The fate of many in the autumn of 1944, as well as the following winters and springs which brought none of the desired consolation along with the end of the war, but rather further grief, fear and broken lives in many places in Eastern Europe. It was the time and the place where you could no longer see who was after you and why, there was no hope for 'their' mercy, and it was no longer possible to predict when one of 'us' had become another one of 'them'. Therefore, in many ways it must have been an exhaustingly lonely struggle through hopelessness, and, all the more importantly - a struggle to what end?

A sense of loneliness and absence of any redeeming destination, just like the one of bad dreams, is what also all the characters of 'Somnambuul' share - those who we see on-screen and those about whose presence we learn through other senses.

Eetla tries to overcome her solitude by fleeing into her dreams, or so it seems. She is like a frail bird, born to fly high, yet captured in a cage with too many bars. In her dreams she flies not only with the other birds, but with her mother, the secret of whose absence she (and eventually, also the viewer) is attempting to unveil. Yet, maybe it is the opposite - in order to avoid falling down like all the rest of them do, falling into from there is no way back - she rather cleanses herself from what is the source of these dreams. Maybe the refuge is not the dreams, but overcoming them - by recounting them, by talking and talking and talking. And maybe there is no refuge, but she holds her balance, high up there, in the midst of the coldest winds, and remains the only bird not taken down and hanging stuffed from the ceiling of her father's room.

Gottfrid, her father, in addition to carefully studying the birds, cataloguing and also stuffing their lifeless bodies, takes care of the lighthouse in this God- and humans-forsaken place on earth. His refuge seems to be the past, a place where he refuses to let in his daughter, maybe trying to save her from it, and simply hand her a future. Yet, unable to protect her from what is outside and inside her - after all, he did put her on the last boat, but she came back -, Gottfrid has his lighthouse, his only gratefully obeying companion to look after. The lighthouse is his anchor to grab hold of when keeping his balance. However, once realising there might be no-one returning over the sea to whom the light may show the way - what is there to keep him holding on to this anchor?

Kasper, the stranger, unlike the father and daughter who provide him with shelter from those pursuing everyone who dares to think of fleeing over the sea, seems to know where he wants to go and why. Eetla's presence seems to intrude into his loneliness, their relationship is almost reluctant. Kasper is getting caught between Eetla's two worlds - he might be the key to her past as well as her future, he might be her entrance to wakefulness or merely become a dream already dreamt. Nevertheless, he is the one who is supposed to pull himself out of the nightmare, but believing he can escape by climbing the stairs alone, he will have no-one to remind him that the stairs will come to an end. Unlike Eetla, he has forgotten what this means.

Loneliness is further emphasised by the bare and endless coming together of the skies and the sea, of the sea and the earth, of the earth and the sky. The beauty of the desolate nature and its indifferent witnessing of the events make the rupture of a human world even more violent. The director does not need scenes of fighting armies to create a sense of horror of foreign invasion, nor blood to visualise cruelty, nor sunken boats to recount to us the stories of those who never made it to the other side. All this is rather brought about by the interplay of what is said and what is left unsaid, and what is there and what elsewhere, as well as the imposing interpretation by the actors. The actors are indeed given a difficult task - a demanding message as that of 'Somnambuul' can only be convincing through a performance of utmost accuracy and talent. However, their performance does full justice to the story, bringing forth both the uniqueness of individual attempts to make sense of this senseless time and place, as well as the fact that there were all too many others who found themselves in the same struggle.

Why would any director, especially one as young as Sulev Keedus, want to explore some of the gloomiest years of Estonia's history? Is it not time, after all, to forget what is behind us in order to be able to go on? It is not as if we could somehow undo the injustice of the past by agonising about it once again, thus, why should we remind ourselves of the pain instead of letting it go? Taking the words of Gottfried: 'It is about time to forget about this,' and Eetla's reply: 'But what if it cannot be forgotten... What if it cannot... What if I remember it in my dreams!'

Maybe it is precisely the remembering - and remembering better - which helps us to come to terms with what we want to most anxiously forget. Maybe the importance of not forgetting lies within the reasons for holding on to one's lighthouse and the reasons for jumping off the boat. These were not the reasons of only those who took that leap and tried to struggle to find an end here and in themselves, not elsewhere. The remembering of these reasons is also a way, perhaps the only way for us to find out what we are. The significance of remembering lies not only in finding out what causes our nightmares and thereby overcoming them, but also in what it means to face them - naked and alone as one is, confronting oneself when there is no refuge. And maybe it is only as long as we do not forget that we can again open our eyes and sigh with relief. This time it was only a bad dream.

Liisi Keedus (1977), BA of comparative studies of religions and theology from University of Tartu, MA in Nationalism Studies from the Central European University; 2002 held lectures in Tallinn at the Estonian Academy of Arts and at Academy Nord, translator, critic.

"Somnambuul" (Broken Sleep) (2003)
Director: Sulev Keedus
Screenwriters: Madis Kõiv, Sulev Keedus
In 1944 tens of thousands of people left the ground of their homeland in fear of approaching frontline. Some villages on the seashore remained completely empty. "Somnambuul" is a film about three uncompromising individuals who stayed despite difficult psychological and historical conditions. The aging father, his 24- year-old daughter and young doctor are trying to escape deeper and deeper into their dreams while there is less and less hope in reality. The boundary between dreams and actual world is an important one in this highly psychological drama.