The Science of Sleep – DVD Review

Film, Reviews


Available at Amazon.com

Directed by
Michel Gondry

Cast:
Gael García Bernal …. Stéphane Miroux
Charlotte Gainsbourg …. Stéphanie
Alain Chabat …. Guy
Miou-Miou …. Christine Miroux
Pierre Vaneck …. Mr. Pouchet
Emma de Caunes …. Zoé
Aurélia Petit …. Martine
Sacha Bourdo …. Serge
Stéphane Metzger …. Sylvain
Alain de Moyencourt …. Gérard


The Movie:

Movies that featured their protagonists mixing reality and fantasy seemed to run amuck in 2006. From Guillermo Del Toro having Ivana Baquero’s Ofelia escape the horrors of the Spanish Civil War to find new one’s within Pan’s Labyrinth, to Darren Aronofsky’s tone poem on eternal love and sacrifice, where his characters journey through storylines that take place a thousand years apart, but may or may not actually exist in the The Fountain. While much lighter than these other examples, Michel Gondry’s The Science of Sleep holds many of these same themes, as its main character wanders in and out of worlds created in his own mind, showing us magical landscapes and fantastic imagery.

In the director’s follow-up to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, we are immediately thrown into this world of Stéphane Miroux (Gael García Bernal), a young man who has trouble distinguishing between reality and his dream world, and it’s not hard to see why. While his actual day to day life includes mundane work constructing calendars and a manipulative mother, his sleeping world has him in complete control, throwing his boss out the window and making love to whomever he wants. The problems come when this world seems to not want to let him go, causing him to miss work and lose the respect of his goofy co-workers.

Things are further complicated by the arrival of a new neighbor, Stephanie (Charlotte Gainsbourg). Creative and inspiring, Stephanie makes Stéphane want to sink further into his make believe world, as while there Stephanie seems to need and want him, while their relationship in reality seems to not be able to go past the “friend” stage. Indeed, his dreams seem to become even more vivid because of his infatuation with Stephanie, as Stéphane begins to even sleepwalk, and his mind starts to cross the line between these two worlds.

While this film may have seemed too pretentious in the hands of a lesser film maker, Director Michel Gondry is able to handle this picture with kid gloves, giving Stéphane’s world of make believe the whimsy and wonder of a child’s dream. Instead of making this world seem real, Gondry’s cities are made of stop motion paper and cardboard buildings. Other images seem to walk the line of bizarre and fantastic, as when Stéphane grows giant hands to ward off his boss, or when he seems to be swimming through his paper world. A toy horse from Stephanie’s apartment will come to life, making for a wonderful steed to carry Stéphane wherever he wants to go.

2006 turned out to be a great year for Gael García Bernal, with this film and his performance in the award winning Babel. The Science of Sleep may have really suffered if it weren’t for performance his performance here, as the actor is able to infuse Stéphane with a child-like innocence that is crucial to the character’s likeability. This could have easily become a whiny and immature character, but thankfully Bernal is able to keep his character childlike, keeping us entertained throughout with him becoming shallow. We want to go with Stéphane because his musings are that of a child, and you can see the awe contained within his face in every moment of his journeys.

My favorite character from the entire film may be Stéphane’s only friend from work, Guy (Alain Chabat), an over-sexed middle aged man, who’s not quite as cool as he’d like to be. Chabat is hilarious in this role, making you laugh at just how crude he can be while never making his character annoying. Over and over, he gives you a laugh to break the tension, and makes a lasting impression on you even as the film ends, almost making you want to have an entire film about him.

Lastly, Charlotte Gainsbourg creates a magnificent love interest in Stephanie, as she’s not your typical Hollywood beauty, but instead literally the girl next door. She provides an anchor of reality in this film that gives it emotional resonance, as her scenes with Bernal often seem real and organic. This is sweet role that the actress is able to pull off quite convincingly, even amongst the bizarre confines of Gondry’s world.

While it’s not perfect, and has an ending that isn’t entirely satisfying, The Science of Sleep is an original piece of work that is light hearted and overtly sweet. Gondry is a director of boundless creativity and simply gives you sights that have not been caught on screen before. With its wondrous visuals and somber tone, The Science of Sleep is a great examination of dreams and love. Let’s hope his next work is equally inventive, as the director represents one of the most unique voices in all of cinema.


The DVD:

The Video
Warner Brother’s print on this picture is pretty nice, as everything seems to be as clear as it needs to be. The film’s colors aren’t supposed to “pop” like in other movies, but the picture is always clean. The film is presented in Anamorphic Widescreen with an aspect ratio of 1.85:1.

The Audio
The Audio track is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 and present’s Gondry’s soundtrack as well as could be expected. There’s a great balance between soundtrack and dialogue, which never seems to conflict.

SPECIAL FEATURES: Commentary, Documentary, Featurettes, Trailers.

Audio Commentary with Writer-Director Michel Gondry, Gael Garcia Bernal, Charlotte Gainsbourg, and Sacha Bourdo – This is a busy commentary that seems to not stop at all throughout the picture. Unfortunately, it’s not always the most intelligible one, as the accents of the actors and film makers are pretty thick. It’s too bad Warner Brothers didn’t include subtitles for the track, but it’s still an interesting experience. Gondry reveals a lot about his life and talks about how much of the movie was autobiographical, which is more than you’d think.

The Making of The Science of Sleep – This is a 39-minute documentary that’s pretty thorough in how it goes over the movie from conception to completion. We get a lot of footage of the preparation it took to construct the film’s animated sequences, as well as early work that was done by the actors. Some of the documentary even goes into Gondry’s early days as a film maker and how he got to that point.

Lauri – This is a Featurette on Lauri Faggioni, the creator of the Animals and Accessories within the movie. We get to see where she gets some of her ideas from and how closely she worked with Gondry on designing these aspects of the movie.

Rescue Me – This is a music video by Actress Linda Serbu, which mostly has to do with rescuing stray cats.

Adopt Some Love: a Linda Serbu film – Again, this is about adopting cats. I don’t understand why this is on the DVD, but nevertheless here it is.

Theatrical trailersThe Science of Sleep trailer is a nice one, and gets you in the right mood for the movie. You also get trailers for The Painted Veil, The Fountain, Infamous, and For Your consideration.

The DVD Lounge’s Ratings for The Science of Sleep
CATEGORY
RATING
(OUT OF 10)
THE MOVIE

8.5
THE VIDEO

8.5
THE AUDIO

8.5
THE EXTRAS

5
REPLAY VALUE

8
OVERALL
7.5
(NOT AN AVERAGE)

The Inside Pulse
This is another wonderful film from Michel Gondry, and as bizarre as some of the DVD extras that are included on this disc. If you’re looking for something sweet and different, look no further.

Robert Sutton feels the most at home when he's watching some movie scumbag getting blown up, punched in the face, or kung fu'd to death, especially in that order. He's a founding writer for the movies section of Insidepulse.com, featured in his weekly column R0BTRAIN's Badass Cinema as well as a frequent reviewer of DVDs and Blu-rays. Also, he's a proud Sony fanboy, loves everything Star Wars and Superman related and hopes to someday be taken seriously by his friends and family.