The Science of Sleep
September 16, 2024
Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) directs this surreal, intensely visual film about a young artist (Gael García Bernal) who returns home after the death of his father. With a mundane job and a burgeoning relationship with his neighbor (Charlotte Gainsbourg), his dreams and waking life collide.
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Surreal, funny and intensely visual, The Science of Sleep is both a love story and a whimsical exploration of the inner workings of the human mind. Gael García Bernal (The Motorcycle Diaries, Y tu mamá también) stars as Stephane, a shy young artist with a very active imagination. Having always had a tendency to invert dreams and reality, throughout the film he travels between the two worlds as they intertwine and collide. After his father dies, Stephane’s mother persuades him to return home to Paris and lines up a job for him there. The job turns out to be dreary and mundane, but the arrival of new neighbor Stephanie, played by Charlotte Gainsbourg (21 GRAMS), brings some excitement and yields an unusual relationship. Michel Gondry, director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, this time both writes and directs, opening a wide cinematic canvas in which narrative and visual landscape have no limits. The story develops in a mixture of languages (French, Spanish, and English), and the inventive and expertly crafted sets, surprising animation and dazzling cinematography help to create an experience that is both fantastical and somehow familiar. The Science of Sleep is an endearing, magical and ultimately indescribable film. Hollywood take note: imagination and sensibility trump CGI and star power.
- Director: Michel Gondry
- Principal Cast: Gael García Bernal, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Alain Chabat, Miou Miou, Emma de Caunes, Aurelia Petit, Sacha Bourdo, Pierre Vaneck
- Country: France
- Year: 2006
- Running Time: 105 min.
- Producer: Georges Bermann, Michel Gondry, Frederic Junqua
- Screenplay: Michel Gondry
- Cinematographers: Jean-Louis Bompoint
- Editors: Juliette Welfling
- Music: Jean-Michel Bernard
- Filmography: Dave Chappelle’s Block Party (2005), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Human Nature (2001)
- Language: English, French