Science of Sleep Review
by Caitlin Dolan
The hyperbolized fantasy-world that director Michel Gondry creates in The Science of Sleep is full of optical illusions and physical impossibilities, and yet it feels like an honest representation of how we perceive the world -- or, at least, how protagonist Stéphane Miroux (Gabriel Garcia Bernal) perceives the world. Stéphane, a young artist, moves from Mexico into his mother’s flat in Paris after the death of his father. His new job at a calendar printing company is not as stimulating as he had hoped and his mother’s new husband irritates him. The plights of Stéphane’s life would seem more or less mundane were they not heightened by his tendency to “invert reality and dreams,” to confuse what is real and what is concocted by his exceedingly creative unconscious mind. The result is a story that twists in and out of reality and dream sequences, often to the point of confusing the audience, but no more than the protagonist himself, who struggles to make sense of the hyper-stimulating world he lives in.
Gondry constructs Stéphane’s dream world using what look like antiquated special effects techniques – papier-mâché props, animation using materials like cellophane and cardboard, and flying sequences filmed in water. The effects may not be as polished as those produced by newer digital technology, but they cleverly imitate the awkward absurdity of dreams – their unnaturalness is natural in this context. Gondry also expertly creates the overwhelming quality that dreams often have with loud, frenetic music and bright colors, and by playing with time, speeding up and slowing down the images on the screen.
When Stéphane falls for Stéphanie (Charlotte Gainsborough), the unassuming but equally creative girl in the flat next door, his life becomes even more complicated as she gets dragged into his dreams and his reality, which he has trouble distinguishing. The two of them struggle with the conflict between their undeniable compatibility and opposing dispositions. Stéphanie appreciates Stéphane’s artistic sensibilities and each inspires the other, but Stéphanie is ultimately more practical than Stéphane (it would be difficult not to be) and does not want to be in a relationship with someone whose reality is half dreams, for obvious reasons.
The Science of Sleep unfolds in three different languages: French, Spanish, and English. Stéphane is a native Spanish speaker and speaks French with difficulty (despite having a French mother, one of several forgivable holes in the screenplay), and Stéphanie is French, but they find a common ground in the English language. Language plays a subtle but important role in the film. Because the characters understand different languages to different extents, they are at times unaware of some of what is said in a scene. The audience, benefiting from subtitles, can understand the dialogue in its entirety. The unbalanced distribution of comprehension allows Gondry to insert a complex dramatic irony into his scenes.
Despite all of the over-the-top grandeur and whimsicality of the film’s execution, it remains real and earnest, and the main characters are, for the most part, very easy to empathize with. This is thanks to the stunningly natural performances by Bernal and Gainsborough. Even when the audience cannot separate the dream sequences from reality or follow the basic plotline, Stéphane’s angst and distress and Stéphanie’s timid tenderness are believable and make up for any skepticism the viewer might have about the film’s plausibility.
Some have claimed that Stéphane is Gondry’s cinematic self-portrait, and it seems like a reasonable assertion. The Science of Sleep is the director’s second feature-length film, and it deals with some of the same issues – love, relationships, compatibility, and fate – as his first film, The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. With the European backdrop of Sleep, however, Gondry finds himself closer to home, and the result is an extremely personal account of the inner workings of one man’s mind. Perhaps Gondry has created his own inner world on screen, but it is highly thought-provoking and a sight to be seen.
