The Science of Sleep

1150 Words5 Pages
Early in Michel Gondry’s new film, “The Science of Sleep,” lead character Stephane (Gael Garcia Bernal) is joyfully recounting a concert he attended with his beloved dad. He’s awed as Duke Ellington comes out on stage, resplendent in a white suit. “Then I realize…this is not Duke Ellington. This is *Duck* Ellington. I say, ‘Dad! This is Duck Ellington!” Pause. “‘I’m sorry, Dad; you’re dead. You lost the battle to cancer’.” This is just one of many sequences flowing out from “Stephane TV,” a show filmed every night of Stephane’s life in a tiny studio constructed mostly of cardboard and tape, where the cameras are assembled from cardboard boxes. The English title of Gondry’s film is not quite accurate; in French it’s “The Science of *Dreams*” (though there’s no science involved in either case) and Stephane is an avid dreamer who never knows whether his experiences at any moment are real or something else entirely. His mother (Miou-Miou) tells a friend, “Since he was six, he has inverted dreams and reality.” Not so much inverted as muddled together, and a great deal of this film takes place in the dreamscape of Stephane TV. Hearing this, the hearts of Michel Gondry fans leap for joy. Gondry has made a few feature-length films, most notably his 2004 collaboration with screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” But where he really blooms is in the narrower confines of music videos and short films, which marry a guileless, childlike sensibility to eye-popping surreal effects. (Buy, rent, or borrow “The Work of Director Michel Gondry,” which gathers 27 music videos and various shorts, most of which are appropriate for children.) The idea of a full-length movie written as well as directed by Gondry, and which has dreams as its subject matter, sounds like a feast. Those high expectations are more than fulfilled; the screen is nearly
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