The Sleeping Dictionary (2003) on Netflix
Sent to Sarawak in the 1930s, John Truscott works with the Iban under Henry Bullard. Selima becomes his sleeping dictionary, teaching him the local language, and their bond is forbidden.
- Netflix3.3/5
- IMDb6.5/109,994 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes66%
Trailer
Plot summary
A young Englishman, John Truscott, arrives in Sarawak, a British protectorate on Borneo, in the 1930s to take a post in the colonial government and apply his father's ideas to Iban society. His superior, Henry Bullard, and Henry's wife, Aggie Bullard, receive him. John sets up schools and arranges teaching for the Iban, meeting customs that are new to him. Selima becomes his sleeping dictionary, sharing his bed and schooling him in the speech and ways of the people. The two develop feelings for each other. John wants to marry Selima, but the longhouse forbids the match and Bullard objects.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Sleeping Dictionary (2003)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The film's writer and director created the screenplay after a back-packing trip he made to Borneo in the early 1980s, having become enamoured of ngayap, the Iban way of courtship practiced in the early 1920s and '30s.
- The film is set when the third British White Rajah, Charles Vyner Brooke, was on the throne in Sarawak, which was then a British Protectorate and not a British colony as the film states; it became a Colony after the Second World War when the Rajah abdicated.
- The local Malaysian production company's Sri Lankan partner, Chandran Rutnam, had brought Steven Spielberg to Colombo to shoot Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, while his Malaysian partner Edgar Ong was involved in the first major Hollywood feature made in Sarawak, Farewell to the King, in 1987.
- Bob Hoskins was not the first choice for his role, as both Michael Caine and then Tom Wilkinson had turned it down; Hoskins went on to win Best Actor at the first-time ever DVD Award, given for direct-to-DVD films only.
- A longhouse was specially constructed at great expense, RM125,000, at Batang Ai, where the film cast and crew were based for 10 days.
