The Science of Sleep








Director - Michel Gondry

Genre - Comedy/Drama/Fantasy/Romance


Directed by former MTV director Michel Gondry, this movie will take you headlong into the mind of a child-like dreamer whose waking life and dream world seem to interlace. His love for a next door neighbor keeps him grounded and is the anchor which prevents this film from spiraling into idiosyncratic zone. Their real relationship dialogues and struggles give the story significance. Gael García Bernal is perfect as the boyish dreamer while Gondry's use of handmade, low-budget effects is charming.

3 STARS!

All about The Science of Sleep

Comments

Shubhajit said…
I loved Gondry's Eternal Sunshine (in fact, love would be a very mild way of [utting it). Would really like to see this one as well. In fact, allmovie, too, is quite effusive in its praise.
August 9, 2008 at 10:59 AM
Joel Bocko said…
Both Science of Sleep and Be Kind Rewind felt somewhat erratic and unsure of themselves. Gondry still has to find his footing as a writer/director - which is interesting because he's the unquestioned master of the music video form, not just whimsical but with an iron control of his craft.

It will be interesting to see if he continues to develop or sort of finds his niche and sticks with it.
August 13, 2008 at 11:06 AM
1minutefilmreview said…
A distinguishable hallmark of any great director is that their films have a particular style which no other directors can emulate. We're not saying Gondry belongs in the ranks of great directors as of this moment. What he does offer are films which are very 'off the beaten path' from the norm. We think that he is erratic as well, but we love him for this trait. We'd rather have a dish of erratic than a plate of predictability.

As for being unsure of himself, we believe this to be a very untrue assumption. It is easy to mistaken his style for being under-developed, but like a magician who uses the occasional silly humor to throw off the audience, Gondry is well in control of his craft. Unlike Kevin Smith who has already exhausted his talents, we'd like to think Gondry still has some aces up his claymation/cardboard/candy-made(what the...) nose.
August 17, 2008 at 5:33 AM
Joel Bocko said…
Gondry is definitely an original. And he certainly has not exhausted his possiblities, my sense of him being uncertain stems not from the imagination (which is fully-formed) nor his directorial chops (which, as his music videos prove, are among the very best out there - and it when it comes to performances, a field generally untested by his videos, he has a surpringly warm, human touch). It stems from his screenplays, which do genuinely feel erratic and wobbly to me. I think he is a great director but he hasn't proven himself yet as a writer, and if he wants to continue as a writer/director he will have to work on the former part a bit more before his potential greatness is achieved. (Another reason why Eternal Sunshine is his most fully-formed work yet; but with Kaufman's overpowering personality I'd like to see Gondry deliver a work which is both fully-formed and an expression of his own very unique and interesting sensibility.

I think (and hope) he will get there. (Actually, I wrote about Gondry in my first post on the blog, here: http://thedancingimage.blogspot.com/2008/07/landmarks-of-early-film-be-kind-rewind.html. I don't care how outdated the posts are - I'll still respond if you decide to drop by & discuss. There's also some more recent posts up which were fishing for comments but haven't got any yet - so feel free to take the bait there too.)
August 17, 2008 at 10:04 AM
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