Movie Review: The Science of Sleep

I don't know why I'm still going to theaters. Oh yeah, sometimes I don't have to pay to...

RANT AT THE SCREEN: HOLY INDEPENDANT PICTURES, BATMAN

Today's film is from the freakin' madman that previously brought us "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" called "The Science of Sleep". The title's a bit of a misnomer, as there's very little science involved (at least, real science... there's all sorts of fake science), but sleep weighs in heavily enough to be counted twice. Honestly, though "The Sleep of Sleep" would be a pretty redundant title.

The Science of Sleep (dropping quotes now) is freaking insane. The film is mostly conducted in French (France being the location most of the story takes place), with brief asides into Spanish and English. This leads to me reading a lot of subtitles, which I don't actually mind that much. Stephane has moved to France at the request of his mother, occupying his childhood room following the death of his father by cancer in Mexico. She has lied to get him here, gaining him a job setting text for a calendar company while promising him a job in graphic design. In his dreams, Stephane hosts a television show (which treats us as the audience), and he explains early that dreams are a bit of memory, anxiety, musical remembrance, and fantasy.

Stephane's life is heightened when a new girl moves in accross the hall - Stephanie. He quickly exchanges a series of misunderstandings with them, and becomes more and more intrinsically involved, eventually setting his sights on Stephanie as his dream girl. However, things between his work and social life become more and more complex.

Things build in this film logically... there are solid, but passable cuts between Stephane's real life and his dream world (in all its surrealness). A tide of excitement over the possibility of relationship with Stephanie, and themes progress... The story becomes a sort of meditation on current problems, such as relationships vs sex, the role of the romantic in modern society, and the consequence of dream and expectation vs reality. There are moments of awesome clarity, and feels like things could build to something awesome, however...

At the beginning of act three, the whole thing falls apart. Stephane gets lost between awake and asleep scenes on a drinking night, leaving the audience unclear as to what is occuring at all (and where!). All we come to know is Stephane has royally messed things up, and may in fact be a big jerk, a sentiment the movie actually ends on. The resolution, such as it is, is entirely bittersweet, and almost seems forced.

That said... if you like talky, surreal, foreign films, and dream-study is a past time of yours, you could do a lot worse than this. Many scenes are actually downright hilarious and tragic in execution, lending a lot to Stephane's little world. Just don't expect things to fit together nicely, as you may have to make a few leaps to get near the end (which left me going "WHAT?!"),

All in all, I give this flick 3 days missed of work because I was sleeping out of 5.