This Fall Break's Highlight

Movies
'Science of Sleep': When All You Have to Do Is Dream
By Desson Thomson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 22, 2006; Page C05

Michel Gondry's romantic fantasy "The Science of Sleep" is something to appreciate with the unscientific part of your brain -- you know, the part that dreams.

Gondry -- you may recall -- was the director of "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," the 2004 movie in which two star-crossed lovers, played by Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet, learn that while memories may be erased, the heart never forgets. "The Science of Sleep" is more playful. In it, two eccentric souls (Gael García Bernal and Charlotte Gainsbourg) discover love can bypass reality altogether -- all they have to do is live in a state of perpetual fantasy.

Hmmm, don't try this at home and expect to keep your day job -- but it's a thrill to enjoy vicariously. Gondry intensifies that feeling with a whimsical fusion of live action and animation. At any moment, for instance, characters might find themselves in a bathtub filled with cellophane instead of water, or floating like Marc Chagall figures above cardboard rooftops of Paris.

These and other fantasies emanate from the mind of Stéphane (Bernal), a young man unable to tell the difference between his dreams and reality. Following the death of his father in Mexico, he has recently flown to Paris, the city of his childhood, to rejoin his estranged mother (Miou-Miou). But Stéphane's French is minimal, and the typesetting job his mother secures for him makes no use of his artistic skills. (His portfolio consists of large illustrations of major disasters, such as midair plane explosions.)

So Stéphane retreats even deeper into his psychic world. In his most recurrent dream, he's the host of his own TV show -- its studio walls lined with egg cartons -- where he revisits childhood memories or processes his latest emotional problems. In another reverie, he recoils in horror as an electric shaver develops a life of its own and works in reverse, causing his new boss to sprout a Charles Mansonian beard and head of hair.

When he becomes attracted to Stéphanie (Gainsbourg), a soft-spoken neighbor across the hall, he recognizes a kindred spirit. She's loosely tethered to daily reality and her surrealistic home projects include a model boat made of fabric with trees onboard. But how do you ask someone out when you're not even sure you're awake?

Why Stéphane dodges reality -- he's been this way since he was 6 -- isn't specifically answered, though one assumes it's because of his parents' long-ago breakup. And why Stéphane and Stéphanie should be together (other than their oddball personalities and the obvious twinning of their names) is only superficially explained.

By contrast, "Eternal Sunshine," which had the added benefit of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (who wrote "Being John Malkovich," "Adaptation" and Gondry's "Human Nature"), not only made the case for the romantic destiny of its couple, it posed provocative questions about love, memory and the role of the state.

"The Science of Sleep" never intends to be deeper than a magician's hat, its frantic playfulness recalling such inventive French capers as "Amélie" and "Zazie Dans le Métro." And its wonderfully low-tech stop-motion technique is not only a nod to Czech animator Jan Svankmajer but also a tacit rebuke to CGI-heavy fantasies such as "The Chronicles of Narnia" or the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. Those epics may awe audiences with their digital lions or armies of moving trees, but they can't match the hands-on charm of a cloud made entirely of cotton wool.

There's also the irresistible appeal of Bernal, who has already endeared himself to audiences in movies such as "Y Tu Mamá También," "The Motorcycle Diaries" and "Bad Education." With his character's herky-jerky restlessness, slapstick antics and confused attempts at French and English, he suggests a talkies version of Buster Keaton -- perpetually flustered by the occupational hazards of daily life. And when, in a dream, his workmates hustle him toward a photocopier, he utters what passes for this movie's ultimate wisdom.

"It's a dream," he tells his colleagues. "We don't have to work in dreams."

The Science of Sleep (106 minutes, at Landmark's E Street Cinema and at five additional theaters a week later) is rated R and contains profanity, some sexual content and nudity. In French, Spanish and English with subtitles.

Escreverei sobre este filme proximamente (este Sábado ou Domingo...). Agora não tenho o tempo que o filme merece e a crítica do Washington Post parece-me suficientemente elucidativa (embora diga muito pouco acerca do que realmente interessa!). A não perder em Portugal!