The Science of Sleep

The Science Of Sleep’s main character, Stephane (Gael Barcia Bernal) is from Mexico and having just graduated from school returns to live with his mother in her apartment building in Paris, France since his Father has passed away recently from Cancer and she has found him a job as a paste-up designer for promotional calendars.

His job is nothing like what he expects and his relationships have the same perspective you have at the young age when you don’t understand yet that you can’t really understand everything the world dishes out and you are not old enough yet to have become bored with this.

He seems to find some communication with the outside world in French, Spanish, and English which leads to some comic moments of miscommunication. His one joyful creative outlet is of course, the girl next door, Stephanie(Charlotte Gainsbourg) who he can dream with and make new things, but perhaps that is not enough? His other creative outlet is dreaming which starts to get tangled up with the so-called reality in the film.

This movie reminds me of a funny childrens’ story that goes in and out of reality via imaginative playmaking. The adults realities seem boring and stupid; having a job, making ridiculous promotional calendars, men discussing sexual fantasies in the darkroom, checking out babes in a bar and dancing, working in a ridiculous office…his mothers relationship…etc…

Whenever he slips into his sleep/imagination…fun things (not normal) start to happen. He seems to try and maintain a balance of reality and unreality by hosting a tv show in his sleep of the various topics filling his mind. It seems as though Gondry wants to tangle the viewer up in reality and unreality…playing with the viewers sense of what is real and what is the film.

There are comic scenes such as when Stephanes’ hands blow up to the size of huge inflatable chairs and he beats up everyone in his office. His relationships with his co-workers are comic to say the least. The best scenes are of course when he is dreaming.

Now playing at Angelica in New York