“This portrait of the struggle to start over when a painful past has not yet left body and soul is a testament to Parsaei’s great talent.”

When you try to build up a new life, it’s hard to shed your old skin. Certainly if the fear that made you leave everything behind still runs so deep that it prevents you from making the connections that allow you to start anew. Such is the case for Iman, the protagonist of debuting writer-director Massih Parsaei’s Lovers Sleep Alone, a film in which the balance between closeness and anonymity is a tough one to hold. Parsaei, who left Iran in 2009, situates his story of an Iranian exile, whose wounds from the past haven’t healed yet, in Berlin, the city Parsaei himself has called home for a decade now. It’s a cold city, not just because the story is set in winter, but because it keeps a certain distance. And for now, that is just how Iman (played by Pooyesh Frozandeh) likes it.

He works two jobs, one night shift at a truck car wash, and a day job as a caregiver for an old man who rarely wakes and doesn’t disturb his peace. While he keeps his distance and doesn’t let anyone get too close, Iman does care, for his patient Wolfgang and for his co-workers at the car wash. When one of them nearly faints, Iman supports him and presses a cold towel on his neck. The co-worker brushes him off, lest the rest of the team should think they’re gay.

As a matter of fact, Iman is gay. It’s the reason he left Iran. Some nights he frequents a cruising spot on the city’s periphery, to watch strangers have anonymous sex, and to meet a man (Marcel Kohler) who is clearly seeking more than just physical intimacy from his quasi-relationship with Iman. But Iman holds him off, lies about his ailing father as a stand-in for Wolfgang, lies about having friends he plays football with. He lies to his co-workers too, about a girlfriend he doesn’t have and about plans for Christmas. He seeks human connection, but also distance.

Then Maneli (Ava Darvishi), a long-lost cousin, comes to visit for a few days. It rekindles Iman’s connection to Iran, through language, through food, through a short phone call with his mother. There is much he left behind when he fled to Berlin, but some things tie Iman forever to the past. The wounds run deep, metaphorically represented by a cut on his hand that takes its sweet time to heal. It is unclear how he suffered it, because he spins tales about that too. He doesn’t want to let anyone in, not yet, not now.

Like Iman holding those closest to him at arm’s length, so does Lovers Sleep Alone as a film hold off its audience. Not to its detriment, mind you, because this falls in line with its ideas and its tone. The film is guarded, mirroring its protagonist. Slow, long takes pass by without much drama, because drama and emotion are what Iman is trying to avoid. He’s had enough of that already in a previous life, although the film remains tight-lipped about the extent of the drama in his past. It’s clear that he has a problem opening himself up to something deeper, which is why he takes care of a man who is unresponsive, and why at night he likes to look into the cabins of the trucks he has washed, observing sleeping drivers who won’t interact with him. He has normal conversations, with the men at the car wash or with other caregivers he sees at the end of his shifts with Wolfgang, but these conversations are superficial or strictly work related.

Parsaei likes to observe Iman from afar, across the street or from a car, creating similar distance. Most of the times we get him in close-up are when he sleeps, which he does a lot. It’s the unusual working hours, and he can’t seem to find rest, neither his body nor his mind. Maneli’s arrival is a bit of respite, and with her he does seem to connect more deeply. Perhaps because she is a memory of the warmth of his past, even though he hasn’t seen her since they were kids. He is “the one who suddenly disappeared”, and her arrival brings back the good parts of what he left behind.

Throughout the film Iman crosses paths with people, regular Berliners who in a way reflect him. They too have issues with connecting to a loved one, or with having to decide what to keep and what to leave behind. The most visually striking example is a conversation between a woman and her husband as they are driving home from the hospital. The woman has undergone tests for a numbness in her body, although it is slowly subsiding. We never see them in frame, the camera looking outward from the backseat of the car. Suddenly a cyclist comes into the shot, riding alongside the car. It’s Iman. Will his numbness subside?

Touches like these show Parsaei’s talent for communicating his ideas. These moments are not unique, but he knows how to use them effectively. A lengthy discussion between Iman and his cousin as they walk on the other side of the street, the camera following like an undetected pair of eyes shadowing them, underlines their conversation. The framing of men in the woods (with gorgeous night photography by cinematographer Jakob Reinhardt) creates shadowy figures almost indistinguishable from the trees. Parsaei takes his time; Lovers Sleep Alone‘s pace is slow, almost lethargic, but it fits the pace of its protagonist. There is very little plot because Parsaei, and Iman, like to keep us in the dark. The film’s final scene, in which Iman has to suffer a police interrogation after a theft occurred on a bus, therefore feels out of place and forced, suddenly moving away from the poetic tone and tackling social issues head-on. The film wants to connect the plight of immigrants, always the first suspects when it comes to situations like this, to the kind of persecution that Iman escaped from in Iran. It’s somewhat of a false note to end the film on, even though the scene itself plays out well. Moments like these prevent Lovers Sleep Alone from being a complete home run, but this portrait of the struggle to start over when a painful past has not yet left body and soul is a testament to Parsaei’s great talent, as a director with vision and a willingness to be patient. It’s slow cinema at its finest, and Parsaei is a director we shouldn’t sleep on.