Review: ‘Science of Sleep’ takes viewer into fantasy world

Directed by: Michele Gondry

Starring: Gael García Bernal, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Miou-Miou, Alain Chabat, Pierre Vaneck

Rated: R

Now Playing: The Moxie Cinema, 408 W. Walnut St., through Oct. 24

One has to figure a director who developed his chops doing music videos for avant-garde pop icons like Björk and The Chemical Brothers probably knows a thing or two about visual style and out-of-the-mainstream approaches to film. The surrealistic style he executed so cleverly in the video medium carried over into his big screen breakthrough, “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.” Gondry co-wrote – with the likewise surrealistically bent Charlie Kaufman – and directed that film to critical acclaim in 2004.

His latest, “The Science of Sleep,” is a solo affair with Gondry credited as the sole writer as well as director. It’s also his most visually visionary work to date, and the film’s narrative structure – obviously cued from Kaufman’s writing style – is a match for its visual style.

While “The Science of Sleep” is a romantic comedy at heart, it owes more to Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dali than “When Harry Met Sally.”

Gael García Bernal stars as Stephane, a French-Mexican (many of the characters here are of diverse nationalities) artist who moves back to Paris upon the death of his father. Stephane’s mom, played by French actress Miou-Miou, promises her son she’s found him a good job that provides an outlet for his creativity. What Stephane walks into is a mundane position cutting and pasting graphics and copy at a calendar factory. The owner of the company finds little use for Stephane’s proposed calendar, “Disasterology,” which depicts bizarre paintings of earthquakes and plane crashes.

Besides the boss, Stephane’s co-workers are quite out of the norm as well. Guy (Alain Chabat) is an over-sexed chauvinist, and the other two are a male-female “Mutt and Jeff” pair that Guy insists on referring to as “the gay couple.” The atmosphere is quite surreal.

Everything in Stephane’s life is that way, and we learn it’s because, since childhood, Stephane has had trouble distinguishing between real life and the dream state.

The entire film is solipsistic in nature. Stephane can’t differentiate between his real and imagined worlds, and since we are seeing the film through him, the audience doesn’t know either.

In the opening scene, we see Stephane hosting his own dream-world TV show. The cameras are made of cardboard boxes and wrapping paper tubes, and the sets are a less modernist version of “Pee Wee’s Playhouse.” Stephane’s cooking segment shows us a recipe for dreams. In its own way, the recipe makes quite a bit of sense.

In the “real” world, Stephane has a new neighbor across the hall. Stephanie – played by the unconventional beauty Charlotte Gainsbourg – is another freethinker and, it seems, would be a perfect match for Stephane. But since she has complained about her landlady, Stephane doesn’t have the nerve to tell her he actually lives in the apartment house. His mom, after all, is the landlady.

But the pair does manage to hone a friendship of sorts. Stephane shows Stephanie and her friend, Zoe, some of his rather esoteric inventions. There are the glasses that let you see objects around you in 3-D. “Isn’t life already in 3-D?” asks Stephanie. “Yes! But this is better!” is Stephane’s reply.

He also has a set of “brain connector” helmets and a time machine that transports the users one second into either the past or the future.

Seeing that Stephanie is an aspiring artist as well, Stephane says they must work on a project together. This will give him an “in” to keep visiting Stephanie. A harder task will be keeping her from finding out he’s her neighbor.

As his job grows more frustrating – in one dream he grows an enormous set of hands and must cut and paste using them in an indoor whirlwind ¬¬– so does his attempt at wooing Stephanie.

Stephane’s dreams (or is it his “real” life?) are getting more frustrating.

The film’s ambiguous ending will put off some, but it really befits a film that flows so effortlessly between two versions of reality.

Gondry eschews the high-tech, digital-effects approach and presents Stephane’s dream world in stop-motion animation and sets made of cardboard, cellophane and cotton. The art direction of production designers Pierre Pell and Stéphane Rozenbaum is fun and fitting, and Gondry’s casting of such captivating and out-of-the-mainstream actors like Bernal and (especially) Gainsbourg was a wise choice.

Those who like love stories full of fancy, whimsy and wonder (like love itself) will love this story.

Jim Wunderle owns Wunderle Sound Services and is a Springfield free-lance writer and musician. He can be reached at info@wunderlesound.com.