If you are familiar with director Michel Gondry's body of work -- whether it be his little music video masterpieces or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind -- you already know what you're getting before you've seen the movie.
The Science of Sleep starts off inside the dream world, as Stephane (Gael Garcia Bernal) shows us how dreams are made in a faux cooking show. Later, we meet the "real" Stephane: a young artist from Mexico who moves into his divorced French mother's leased apartment building in France after the death of his Mexican father. He did so after his mother promised him a job as a graphic artist for a creative firm, only to find out that his job is merely gluing and printing letters on calendar templates for a small company in a basement. He also falls for his cute neighbor Stephanie (Charlotte Gainsbourg). These are the stuff that builds his dreams, which we see in many fantasy vignettes that are simply, well, let's try and find a better word for it than "astonishing". I don't think I can.
Think Gondry's Bjork and Radiohead videos. It's a barrage of stop-motion animation, in-camera trick photography, and lots of crazy ideas that probably sounded like the unintelligible scribbling of an over-imaginative yet medicated infant on paper.
The dream sequences are the ones that are worth the ticket price, sure, but the film also has a very sharp script, especially in dialogue. As hollow as their relationship is, some of the banters Stephane get into with Stephanie are hilarious. Even funnier are the dynamics between him and his co-workers. Gondry, who wrote the script himself, obviously could have written a cop-out script that basically calls for a visual director's showcase event, yet here he displays a knack for writing enjoyable dialogue moments and scene set-ups that we really haven't seen from him before.
It would've been easy to have two completely separate worlds in the film, where Stephane just travels back and forth between them. The film would still be as vibrant and alive with its visuals, but that's not what they did. They made the dream aspect completely essential to the character of Stephane, and not just "time out" moments from all the real world dullness. Stephane is portrayed as a guy who confuses reality with dream, on a level that nears schizophrenia. His dreams are so vivid that he often sleepwalks and interacts with people. When he wakes up, he doesn't feel the difference. The transition between waking and sleeping doesn't exist to him. This, of course, is cute and silly and funny at first -- but builds into a serious problem later on, when he becomes paranoid and delirious due to mistaking events in his dreams as actual events -- and in the process jeopardizes his life. Stephane doesn't realize this, or is in denial about it. But what about us? We are left deciding what's more important: a creative and vividly inspired imagination, or a mature healthy mind that doesn't destroy your social and professional life. Usually it's a no-brainer that we want a healthy life, but the film makes a great case for the former option, without hiding its flaws or resorting to cheap speeches. It simply shows how fun an active imagination could be.
In the hands of a different director -- say, David Lynch or Richard Linklater -- the exact same script could have been turned into a disturbing and darker film. However, Michel Gondry treated it with such child-like glee, that the result was a light-hearted film beaming with positive innocence. Sometimes it may seem a little too precious, but there is always an ironic humor that accompanies it. It doesn't have to be taken so seriously.
There's a big concern about how films like these are being pretentious without having any real goods to back it up. While the weight of this film's substance is debatable, it certainly keeps the pretentiousness at bay with its kiddie charm. In a more serious tone, it could have been unbearable, interrupting the story to give way for scenes that the director's free to do whatever crap he likes. With Gondry, you just giggle and giggle, waiting for the next absurdly creative fantasy sequence. So it's flawed and arguably shallow. Eh. Who cares? Not with 10 movies' worth of ideas crammed into one film.
You will walk out of the film feeling like you want to ride a unicorn into a rainbow and fall asleep on a cloud of pink cotton candy.
Yes, that's a good thing.
"The Science of Sleep" opens September 22, 2006 and is rated R. Comedy, Drama, Fantasy. Written and directed by Michel Gondry. Starring Alain Chabat, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Gael Garcia Bernal, Miou Miou.
