Sundance 2006 - Day two

A review of 'The Science of Sleep', the new film from Michel Gondry and Gael Garcia Bernal.

Jan 24 2006

'The Science of Sleep', the new film from French director Michael Gondry, had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on Sunday night and proved to be the most exciting offering so far in the quite lacklustre 'Premieres' section of the 11-day-long event.

Gondry has written the script for 'The Science of Sleep' himself, leaving behind the Oscar-winning screenwriter Charlie Kaufman with whom he collaborated on his two previous features, 'Human Nature' and 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind'.

The film has all the visual and romantic charm of Gondry's celebrated music videos, mixing live action footage with moments of arts-and-crafts special effects. To imagine this, think of cellophane as a substitute for running water, or knitted horses gallloping across cartoon fields. The effect is charming and inspiring. Gondry is a storyteller with a language that is very much his own; a language characterised by his background in music videos and a very personal, uncynical and honest approach to love and romance.

The film is a love story set in Paris. Gael Garcia Bernal plays Stephane, a half-Mexican calendar illustrator who moves into his mum's empty Paris flat soon after the death of his father. Next door lives Stephanie (Charlotte Gainsbourg), a woman to whom Stephane only realises he's attracted when it comes to him in a dream.

Their relationship becomes complicated and unclear. Desires are vague. Approaches are clumsy. And Stephane has a peculiar, distorting habit: his dreams and waking-life blur unhelpfully into one. One minute he's living his real life; the next he's fast asleep and dreaming only to wake up and find that those same dreams were, in fact, real. Or at least have the effect on the real world of being real. Confusing? Yes, and brilliantly so. Gondry infuses the same sense of ensemble chaos that he achieved in 'Eternal Sunshine' with romance, imagination and comedy. His inventiveness is intoxicating, bewildering and inspiring.

A real discovery of the film is just how funny Gael Garcia Bernal can be as a comic actor. He opens the film as a character in his own dream, hosting a television show, 'TV Stephane', and giving his viewers a quick guide to the make-up of dreams. His performance drives the film.

There was an after-party for the film on Park City's Main Street following the screening of the film, and it proved to be one of the best parties that this critic has experienced over three years of coming to Sundance.

The director and some of his cast, including Garcia Bernal, drank and danced into the small hours. Gondry played the keyboard while an MC rapped. Garcia Bernal hung out with fellow Mexican, the director Carlos Reygadas. And one of Gondry's actors, a friendly Russian called Sacha Bourdo, explained in broken English his theory, while pointing at a party-goer taking a piss in the snow, that all men - and not women - are animals really. Only in Sundance.

To read day one, click here.
To read day three, click here.

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