Behind the Scenes on Jasmine De Silva’s Body Horror Short Film ‘Beauty Sleep’

Follow the instagram account @beautysleepfilm to hear about events and screenings that Beauty Sleep will be a part of, and for cast and crew credits.

Beauty Sleep is a retrofuturistic short film about beauty, identity and the dangerous pursuit of perfection. In the Beauty Sleep world, cosmetic enhancement is different and more extreme from our own, as a representation of the absurd actions we take in order to achieve perfection. 

New boobs, butts and faces can be purchased, sewn on and bedazzled to your choosing. And the latest beauty trend? “Sleeping Beauty Makeovers”. A living embalment all performed by a Mortician in a pastel pink funeral parlour, where teens, for their Sweet 16, emerge from a coffin instead of a giant cake for their party guests.

The makeover procedure and modifiable body parts in Beauty Sleep, represent how women are repeatedly reduced to their body parts, showcasing how we treat our bodies like accessories to be pulled apart and re-constructed every time a new trend arises. Through our main character Sandy, who would bedazzle her own buttcrack if she didn’t need to sh*t like everyone else, we see a stifled creative, who wishes individuality and self expression for everyone. She’s stuck creating the same trend day in day out for teenage girls, micromanaged by her boss who just wants to make a quick buck. Sandy is sweet and quirky, and hellbent on creating a makeover to die for.

“The overwhelming desire to adhere to beauty standards is a universal struggle that’s often dismissed as a superficial issue.”

Beauty Sleep doesn’t judge people for wanting to modify their body. It asks the audience to question why we feel a need to alter our appearance for a trend, to look like someone else. It promotes the message that it is your body, therefore it really is your choice, but to encourage people to make a choice that will express their own identity. 

The character of Lolo, who receives the makeover, is quite literally an object in the film, who everyone else is obsessing over, while she is anaesthetised. Lolo was inspired by Lolo Ferrari’s story who had 25 cosmetic surgeries in 5 years, sadly dying at 37. Lolo recalled adoring the oblivion of anaesthesia, opening up in an interview where she stated “I wanted to change my face, my body, to transform myself. I wanted to die, really.” In Meredith Jones's Skintight: Anatomy of Cosmetic Surgery, she draws parallels between Lolo Ferrari’s story (going under the knife) and fairytales of young women who fall into anaesthesia, or poison-produced death-like sleeps, bypassing the messy and transformative pain of entering womanhood. This idea fascinated me when correlated with cosmetic enhancement, and it was the catalyst for creating a storyworld with Sleeping Beauty makeovers that take place in a funeral parlour.  

I wrote Beauty Sleep as part of the development for a feature film, which was all an extension of the projects I created while studying my MA in Fashion Photography at London College of Fashion. With my background as a fashion photographer, I aim for Beauty Sleep and future films that I create, to bridge a gap between fashion, film and the art world. Working in fashion inspired the visual language of my work, as I employ the intensely alluring and precisely designed aesthetic of beauty and fashion advertising, locking our audience into a false sense of security, blinding them with satire, candy colours, and just a little bit of blood and morbidity. I love utilising satire and enticing aesthetics to discuss heavier and uncomfortable topics. I think it makes it more digestible for an audience, and opens up space for a conversation. 

The overwhelming desire to adhere to beauty standards is a universal struggle that’s often dismissed as a superficial issue. The discomfort in our own skin leads to body anxieties and dysmorphia, depression, eating disorders and suicide, or dangerous and fatal body modification. Written with my own body image struggles in mind, my aim is for Beauty Sleep to encourage people to deconstruct their own relationship with beauty and identity.