Discover the film *Sleeping with the Fishes*:
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In the underground tunnels, Misha is daydreaming about his imaginary ocean. The hubbub of the crowd fills the station and the screech of the train disrupts his dissociative state, forcing him to seek refuge in the half-flooded underground station where he lives. Misha staggers over to a padlocked door, which he tries to open. The fear he felt in the corridor triggers terrifying visions of his past. He sees himself as a child, being abused.
Suddenly, a young boy of about ten comes rushing into the carriage, a woman’s handbag tucked under his arm. Misha panics and stammers at him to go away. Alexei, the young boy, brushes him off rather coldly. Alexei’s arrival triggers further hallucinations in Misha.
Alexei rummages through the stolen bag and pulls out a magnificent lighter. Misha, meanwhile, is desperately trying to light a cigarette to calm himself down. Alexei, taking pity on him, lights his cigarette with his new lighter.
Misha immediately notices a tattoo on the back of the child’s hand. His demeanour changes completely: he stops muttering and sits up straight.
Feeling much more confident, he calls out to the boy, and Alexei notices a tattoo on the back of Misha’s hand – a little faded, but similar to his own. The two men settle down on the benches at the station and chat about their shared past in a juvenile detention centre.
As the conversation goes on, the boy begins to feel unwell. The surroundings start to sway, the lights change colour, and cardboard fish appear and begin to swim around him. Misha disappears but his voice remains: he invites Alexei to let himself be carried away. Misha hypnotises the young boy using a cardboard fish that he waves in front of his eyes. Misha’s voice takes on a menacing tone, the lights flash alarmingly, and Alexei closes his eyes.
Later, Misha hangs the fish he had been waving in front of Alexei’s eyes from the ceiling of the room where he lives, with the stolen lighter dangling from its tail. A myriad of cardboard fish, adorned with talismans, hang from the ceiling, swaying gently. Misha lies down on a mattress on the floor and admires his shimmering ocean.
His image fades and Alexei’s lifeless body appears, floating at the back of the flooded metro carriage.
