THE SCIENCE
OF SLEEP
The Science of Sleep (2006)
Actors: Gael Garc? Bernal, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Alain Chabat,
Miou-Miou, Pierre Vaneck
Directors: Michel Gondry
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, Full Screen,
Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Language: English
Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only)
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Number of discs: 1
Studio: Warner Home Video
Run Time: 106 minutes
DVD Features:
-
Available Subtitles: English, Spanish, French
-
Available Audio Tracks: English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
-
Commentary by writer-director Michel Gondry, Gael Garcia Bernal,
Charlotte Gainsbourg, and Sacha Bourdo
-
The Making of The Science of Sleep
-
Featurette on Lauri Faggioni, creator of Animals and Accessories
-
Linda Serbu "Rescue Me" music video
-
Adopt Some Love: a Linda Serbu film
-
Theatrical trailer
Movie:
 
Disc:
 There
are only about five people on this planet who would sit through this movie I
thought as the end titles scrolled for The Science of Sleep.
Directed by Michael Gondry who directed (but did not write)
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,
The Science of Sleep aims for deliberate weirdness, something which it
probably achieves.
A young graphic designer
who does a soul-numbingly dull job at a calendar business falls in love with
the girl living next door to him. However, she doesn't appear to be
returning his affections; maybe because he is such an oddball who has real
problems coping with real life and is downright creepy when one thinks about
it. For starters, he doesn't want her to know that his mother is their
apartment building's landlady or that he is in actual fact her neighbor.
But even more debilitating is the fact that the young man (played by Gael
Bernal of Babel fame) has trouble differentiating between what
is real and his increasingly erratic dream life.
Consisting of live action
interspersed with surreal stop-motion animated sequences, The Science of
Sleep at times seems to be a case of weirdness purely for the sake of
weirdness. At its heart is a love story, but unlike the one recounted in
Eternal Sunshine, Science of Sleep seems too cute and contrived to have
been inspired by real life and experience. This contrivedness leaves an
emotional vacuum at the centre of the film. Our central protagonist may be
an oddball, but he's too good-looking and gosh darned cute to be convincing:
The Science of Sleep seems too much like Gondry's wish-fulfillment to
a degree.
Add to this a few dream
sequences that drag on for too long, then The Science of Sleep blows
its chance at being the next Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
Still, the movie has its
charms and its European sensibilities will satisfy art house patrons or
those who seek something simply different to the latest Hollywood ?hero
battling vampires? effort.
Be warned though: if
?weird? isn?t your thing, then The Science of Sleep won't be either.
|
