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The Science Of Sleep - Review
Length: 105 min Rated: R Distributor: Warner Independent Pictures Release Date: 2006-09-22 Starring: Gael Garcia Bernal, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Alain Chabat, Miou-Miou, Emma de Caunes
Directed by Michel Gondry
Produced by Georges Bermann, Frédéric Junqua
Written by Michel Gondry
Visit the movie's Official Site!
The Science Of Sleep is a near-perfect mix of fantasy and brutal honesty, with alluring visuals to lessen the blow of the punches. It's like a cross between Heavenly Creatures and Vanilla Sky, with a pinch of acid tossed in. The film opens with a wacky TV show called "Stephane TV," set on a soundstage made from household objects. The host is Stephane (Gael Garcia Bernal), and today's show is about the recipe for dreams, as he throws a variety of ingredients—random thoughts, memories, songs, etc—into a large steaming pot. It's his show and he'll dabble in science, bang the drums, and charm the pants off viewers if he wants to. Only that's not his real life; that's the stuff that dreams are made of. The actual Stephane is shy, awkward, and moving back to his childhood home in Paris after his mom (Miou-Miou) lures him there under false pretenses. He believes he has a creative job lined up with a calendar publisher, but when he arrives, he finds a menial position where he "glues in a basement all day." After returning from his thankless work, he is repaid by a piano tumbling down the stairs in his direction, courtesy of a few clumsy movers. On the plus side, a blonde named Zoe (Emma de Caunes) and a brunette named Stephanie (Charlotte Gainsbourg) take care of him for the afternoon—a side-effect that he doesn't seem to mind. He is initially drawn to Zoe, who doesn't return his affections ("I never get the one I like," he mopes) but his focus shifts to Stephanie, a kindred spirit who shares his view of the world as an artistic playground. The key difference between The Science Of Sleep and Eternal Sunshine is that this movie is not about two people who are madly in love and struggling to make it work; it's about two people that really shouldn't be together and at least one of them knows it. The other, Stephane, is too caught up in his illusions and surreal dreams to be able to function in a relationship, let alone society. Some of his behavior, such as breaking into her bedroom to repair her toy horse, would probably warrant legal action if he weren't so cute. Although The Science Of Sleep delves into tortured love affairs and the fight for creative spirits to survive in a corporate world, it's loaded with humor and imagination. At least half of the movie warps into the alternate reality that Stephane dreams about, where stunning visuals feature entire cardboard cities, animated disasters happening outside of a window, and boats drifting over seas of cellophane. There are different kinds of eye candy, ranging from high-tech fancy visuals to the simplest kind, like a child's toy moving in stop-motion form. The fantasy sequences provide a perfect contrast to the depressing—and often familiar—reality of what is going on outside of them. Gael Garcia Bernal is rapidly becoming one of the most interesting actors of our generation, and the same can be said for Gondry as a director. His award-winning music videos and commercials have molded him into a truly fantastic filmmaker. The Science Of Sleep may be another movie that tackles the concept of dreams, but you've never seen it done quite like this before. It's a visual and emotional masterpiece, the type of dream you never want to wake up from.
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August 22nd, 2006 at 19:52
a sort of marcel Duchamp of the 21 century however i must admit films nowadays are somewhat recollections of bit and pieces of our past filmography therefore on that respect i am not disappointed, neither i expect more due to the circumstances. on the other hand images fly to quickly at times and the story has a deep insight that is not quite develop therefore it becomes more of an entertaining film than what it has to offer, which is a lot more than what we see, but we fail to perceive correctly. it could be that knowledge is somehow a recollection of time and in such a case time has not has its own period to actually mature.