Review: The Science of Sleep (2006)

THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP
(a film review by Mark R. Leeper)

CAPSULE: What sounded like a promising premise turns
into a gratuitous exercise in not-very-interesting
surrealism. There may or may not be a complete story
underneath all of this, but if there is, it is
probably dull and not worth digging for. A young man
returning to France after many years in Mexico finds
his dreams mixing with reality until we lose interest
sorting one from the other and putting together his
story. Writer/director Michael Gondry bets his film
that the viewer will be so engrossed in his
characters and images, they will not mind having the
rug pulled form under them time and again. He loses
that bet. Rating: 0 (-4 to +4) or 4/10

It is certainly possible to have a story in which it is sometimes
difficult to know what is dream and what is reality. But as soon
as there are dream images in a sequence one must assume we are
seeing a dream. However, nearly all sequences of THE SCIENCE OF
SLEEP have something to indicate that sequence is a dream. It
becomes a tiresome effort to sort dream from reality and even if
one succeeds and there is enough non-dream to piece together a
story, the best we would have for a plot is a tiresome romance.
Lovers break up and get back together. It is hardly worth the
effort.

Writer/director Michael Gondry (director of the much better
ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND) does not even seem to
understand how dreams work. Dreams are frequently surrealistic,
but not all surrealism is necessarily dreamlike. I am reminded
of Peter Dinklage's character's complaint in LIVING IN OBLIVION.
He has been cast to play in a dream sequence being filmed but
walks off the set complaining that they feel they need a dwarf
for a dream sequence. He himself is a dwarf, but says that even
he does not dream about dwarves. However, films rarely get the
real feel of dreams, at least my dreams, correctly. Maybe some
people do have weird dreams like something out of Fellini or
Cocteau or Dali, but I know I do not. My dreams may have some
strange situations, but the surroundings do not look visually
very surreal. Perhaps your dreams are different.

Stéphane (played by Gael García Bernal of Y TU MAMÁ TAMBIÉN and
THE MOTORCYCLE DIARIES) returns from many years in Mexico to
Paris to live in the apartment house his mother (Miou-Miou) owns
and to get a job as a creative artist. He gets a job in a
company that makes calendars. The work is drudgery and not at
all what he wanted. His boss feigns some interest in his
creative calendar designs but wisely are not willing to commit to
using those ideas. His big idea is a calendar that commemorates
great disasters. Along the way he discovers that he is attracted
to his neighbor and a friend of hers. The neighbor is Stéphanie
(Charlotte Gainsbourg) and her friend is Zoe (Emma de Caunes).
The similarity of names suggests that Stéphanie may be just some
part of Stéphane if this is all a dream. But then maybe she is
not. Both have the same hobby of making homemade stuffed
animals, and that is a foundation for a firm friendship.

It is hard to tease even this much story from the film because we
keep discovering what we are seeing is one dream after another.
Stéphane dreams repeatedly that he is the host of a television
show that is about his life. The name of the program or perhaps
the station is Stephanet. Each night he sees his life from the
vantage point of this television show. Some scenes we know are
dream sequences and some we are not sure. Much of the film seems
to be made up of little skits involving the characters. Suddenly
Stéphane will have hands that are three feet long. His friends
from work are fairly surreal even in scenes that may not be dream
sequences.

What does this film all mean? What has really happened in the
real world of the film? To paraphrase Freud, sometime a
self-indulgent, disorganized collection of scenes is just a
self-indulgent, disorganized collection of scenes. I rate THE
SCIENCE OF SLEEP a 0 on the -4 to +4 scale or 4/10.

Mark R. Leeper
mleeper.DeleteThis@optonline.net
Copyright 2006 Mark R. Leeper