Seeing that Michel Gondry is responsible for the off-beat Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, it is no wonder that The Science of Sleep is another quirky, off-beat product by him. Stéphane (played by Gael García Bernal) returns to France after his father’s death. He is under the impression that his mother organised a job for him as creative calender designer seeing that he is an artist, but comes to learn that the job is not as glamorous as he thought. Stéphanie (starring Charlotte Gainsbourg) moves in across from his apartment, and he fancies her attractive friend, Zoé, at first. When he gets to know Stéphanie better though, he falls in love with her in stead. But there is a big hurdle in their way: Stéphane struggles to distinguish between dreams and reality. This amounts to a sense of paranoia and obsessive behaviour that threatens his sanity and her love for him.
The film starts out innocently enough, but the viewer soon realises that this is not just any ordinary movie. There is a scene in the film in which Stéphane explains his project entitled “Disastrology” to his new boss. The project encapsulates a calender made up of
well-known historic disasters for each month accompanied by colourful illustrations of the tragic events. The calender seems quite absurd and Stéphane acknowledges that his target audience would need to have a sense of black humour to appreciate the concept. Likewise, the viewer of The Science of Sleep needs to have an open mind and an off-beat sense of humour to appreciate the genius of the film.
The Science of Sleep is filled with surrealistic dream-like sequences in which reality is distorted. The props and sets in these sequences are all hand-made out of everyday materials, cars and cameras are made out of cardboard boxes for example. This emphasises the idea of creativity and creating something with one’s hands, as Stéphane and Stéphanie do. And this aids the viewer to distinguish between Stéphane’s dreams and his reality. Yet later on, it gets more difficult for Stéphane to assess what is dream and what is reality, and as the clues get fewer as to which is which, so too does it complicate assessment for the viewer. The viewer is confused and can, therefore, empathise with Stéphane’s nightmarish sense of frustration and paranoia.
SPOILER WARNING! The viewer even later questions whether Stéphanie is the one that toys with his mind. Was it in fact she that danced so seductively with another man at the opening of his calender? Or was it just a dream? Or was it actually Zoé who he mistook for Stéphanie in reality. I even felt credulous about whether he finds trouble distinguishing between dreams and reality, or whether he is just schizophrenic. In the end scene where he speaks to Stéphanie quite vulgarly, I wondered whether Guy is truly the pig he is made out to be, or whether this is actually a projected characteristic of one of Stéphane’s other personalities. Stéphanie falls in love with him in the beginning, but his intensity and psychosis hamper that initial bud to blossom. He needs help, and one can only hope that she will be the one to rescue him. And this is possible, that is – if the final scene is not just another dream… SPOILERS END HERE.
It is interesting to note that Jean-Michel Bernard, who is responsible for the soundtrack of the film, played the role of the piano-playing policeman.
One’s subconscious is a melting pot for all sorts of ingredients from one’s life. And the subconscious often ascribes individual meaning to certain things/people/events which is very personal to the conscious mind. That is what I believe anyway. And that is why dreams do not seem to make much sense, even to the dreamer. Absurd things are possible and make sense within the dream. No wonder that the dream sequences in the film are described by Gondry as “something that was more personal to me”. I, therefore, do not feel too bad about not understanding everything in the film, for I do not feel the audience is supposed to. There is a quote from the film Waking Life (2001) by Richard Linklater which describes the whole feel and theme of the movie very well: “Are we sleep-walking through our waking state or wake-walking through our dreams?” Something to ponder, isn’t it?
Genre: Comedy / Drama / Romance / Fantasy
Running time: 105 min
Country: France / Italy
Language: French / English / Spanish
Director: Michel Gondry
Writing credits: Michel Gondry
Music: Jean-Michel Bernard
Main Cast:
Stéphane Miroux – Gael García Bernal
Stéphanie – Charlotte Gainsbourg
Guy – Alain Chabat
Martine – Aurélia Petit
Serge – Sacha Bourdo
Christine Miroux – Miou-Miou
Zoé – Emma de Caunes
