Counting sheep to fall asleep is a ritual many know—a playful image that has seeped into memory and culture. What if those imagined sheep were real, invading thoughts during the waking hours and nudging a person toward fear and violence? The idea becomes a provocative starting point, and it threads whimsy with a stark, unsettling edge.
In his debut feature, director José Corral extrapolates from animation to create a distinctive universe. The film follows a young man caught between nightmare and reality, unable to sleep, and slipping into a spiral that blurs the line between sanity and danger.
Ernesto, played by Eneko Sagardoy, is the film’s central figure. He inhabits a dilapidated building where sleep is disrupted by the hum of a neighbor’s party. The neighbor tends to the community and, in quiet moments, builds papier-mâché models—like sheep leaping over a fence in a dream—that haunt his waking hours. Loneliness and isolation define his existence, as he remains trapped in a crumbling void that echoes with memories of better days. On a sleepless night, the inanimate models seem to come alive, pushing him toward unbelievable acts. Notably, the sheep are not animated with any special effects; they are crafted from papier-mâché, a deliberate choice that amplifies the film’s tactile sense of decay and unreality.
Kamikaze
Corral’s project is a bold, rare, and risky offering in the national cinema landscape. The filmmaker describes a universe that sits at the crossroads of mental states and tangible reality, a challenge that could easily deter, but he leans in with fearless gusto. Sagardoy, reflecting on the role, recalls the curiosity of portraying a world where papier-mâché sheep can converse, a premise that tests both performance and imagination.
Counting sheep delivers a bleak mood, populated by isolated figures weighed down by their own misery. The narrative probes mental health and its consequences, yet it crafts a poetic space that nods to Maurice Sendak’s characters in Michel Gondry’s Where the Wild Things Are and The Science of Sleep. The entire story unfolds inside a filthy building, a setting shaped by the fashion of an after-hours crowd and the ambiguity of when the eighties occur. This temporal displacement heightens a hallucinatory fear and unsettled atmosphere that lingers with the viewer.
The filmmaker and cast emphasize that the blurring of lines between madness and reason, between fiction and reality, is central to the experience. Sagardoy notes that this approach helped him shape a character whose world sits on the edge of collapse. The ladder in the story becomes a symbol of social isolation, economic precarity, and neighbors who confront problems they cannot name aloud. Loneliness becomes so acute that it obscures any clear sense of sanity, and the film leans into that ache with unflinching honesty.
Environmental toxicity
Among the surrounding entities is Paola, portrayed by Natalie de Molina, who appears in a minor role yet whose impact is pivotal. Her character embodies a harsh reality: addiction, vulnerability, and the way an environment can shape perception. De Molina has spoken about seeking out new voices in directing—risk-takers who push boundaries—and her performance anchors the narrative in a world where rejection of difference generates fear and hosts the emergence of monsters. The film presents a stark meditation on social exclusion, making the environment itself a character that fuels paranoia and dread.
What makes Counting sheep stand apart is its singular fusion of noir mood, eerie suspense, and a darkly humorous undercurrent. The film invites audiences into a muddy, gritty universe where a disintegrating building, the relics of late-night parties, and a cast of imperfect people converge to tell a story that is at once intimate and unnerving. As the characters navigate despair, the movie threads a thread of resilience through the shared human need for connection, even when that need is buried beneath fear and fragmentation.
In the end, the work remains a distinctive voice in contemporary cinema—unapologetically raw, provocatively strange, and unafraid to ask what happens when the boundary between imagination and reality dissolves. It is a film that invites reflection on how communities respond to difference and how the inner battles of individuals can cast long, haunting shadows over the spaces they inhabit.