Le réalité et toi, vous ne vous entendez pas, n'est-ce pas? Pas à 7 dollars le maîs éclaté présente l'extravagance de FILMuary de maîs éclaté 7 en provenance de la zone dollar : 28 jours de mutilation de film.Sorry. I seem to be speaking in tongues...if the translation is bad, it's not my fault. Hmm...mutilation de film. I like that. So, the mutilation today is The Science of Sleep.
Stéphane is from Mexico City. His mom is French and he moved to Paris after the death of his father. He narrates his dreams as though it were a cable access television show, and sometimes seems to dream so vividly that the actions correspond to actual events, like his dreams are bleeding into his life.
He meets a girl, his neighbor, Stéphanie and lies about being a neighbor. Stéphanie is a composer. She kinda digs Stéphane. Stéphane really falls for Stéphanie. He really makes some intersting choices in his attempts to woo Stéphanie. Some of them are just amazingly...bad.
Largely it's due to this state he lives in of being half dreaming all of the time. It's hard to be sure if he is awake or dreaming at any given time. Through his dreams his insecurities about Stéphanie tend to get the best of him.
And, while, it's an exaggeration, it's a great example of the way doubt can eat away at someone. I mean, here's this guy who is crazy about a girl who is, it seems, pretty crazy about him. Stéphanie's has a great line..."Everything will turn out the way you want, if you stop doubting that I love you. " That sums up the movie and the relationship. Because Stéphane can't get out of his head and stop worrying about every little detail with Stéphanie, it consistently eats away at any hope for a relationship with her.
This makes for 2 Michel Gondry movies in one week. This, of course, means that I have to make some sort of a comparison. While Eternal Sunshine was a pretty awesome story and presentation of someone traveling through their own memories, Science of Sleep is a sometimes sloppy, but still sweet, story of a young man unable to escape from his dreams. The biggest difference is in the story itself. Sunshine was a pretty coherent story. Things happened for a reason, and those reasons were explained. Sleep, however, opts out of really explaining what's going on and just sort of running with this stream of consciousness story of the unconscious. 6 and a half mechanical mares galloping along a cellophane river out of 10.
