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The Science of Sleep is the latest film out by Michel Gondry,
director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. This, along with
Mexican actor Gael Garcia Bernal and a vague summary, something about dreams
versus reality, and a man caught in between, is what attracted me to go
see this movie. These three points proved to fly farther than my
expectations.
The creative imagery and quirks that the filmmakers came up with make the
movie worth seeing for the ideas, pictures and humor alone. The same could be
said about Bernal.
The plot is not much different from what I had first heard, with only
details to add. Stephane (Bernal), a shy young artist and inventor, returns
from Mexico after his father dies there, and moves into his mother's Parisian
apartment in her absence. Across the hall lives Stephanie, a shy young artist
herself. Staphane's problems with keeping straight what happens in his
vivid dreams and what is solid in the world grow more tangled as he tries to
win Stephanie's love.
I entirely loved the movie while I was watching it. It was so different,
so imaginative, inventive and entertaining. By the end though, even the last
quarter, I got a much more depressing aspect of the characters, especially
Stephane, and the direction his head was taking him. He is crazy, and you
could see the pain he must be feeling, the confusion, and sympathize with
him. The character developed a desperate, hopeless feeling as his
condition just got worse. As the credits rolled, I felt a bit let down by the
disastrous character he was.
All the same, the ideas in the movie are ingenious, and completely worth
seeing.
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