The Science of Sleep (2006)

Mexican Stéphane Miroux (Gael García Bernal) has a wild imaginative dream world. His father passes away. He moves to France and gets a job at a boring calendar printing company. Stéphanie (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and Zoé move in next door. The movers drop a piano on Stéphane's hand. He falls for Stéphanie right away. She is pulled in by his imagination.Written and directed by Michel Gondry who also directed 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind', this has lots of Charlie Kaufman touches although he's not involved in this movie. I really like the surrealism. I want to like this movie more but the story is a bit of a mess. Part of the problem may be the multitude of languages. Transferring from one language to the next may have more meaning for people who speak those languages. For example, I can't tell how bad is Stéphane's french. Also the switching between reality and dream is not as clear cut as I want it to be. I love the weird surrealism anyways.

When Stephane (Gael Garcia Bernal) moves in next door to Stephanie (Charlotte Gainsbourg) he falls in love but the creative refuge of his dreams confounds his real life desires. It is a beautiful film that speaks to us of the child within in us and our inability to reconcile the naiveté, purity and creativity of the early years with the demands of our older years. The world that director Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) creates for us, is a world full of homemade creative invention that flows through dreams and reality, the borders ever fuzzy.Resonant with the main film itself, is the stop-motion homemade film that Stephane and Stephanie embark on together. One senses that it is a fertile world for love to grow and Stephanie's gentle soul is best symbolized by a little stitched horse that Stephane animates and that leaps with joy and delight.It is the insecurities of the real world though that bring a sadness to the story. The inability of Stephane to understand the rituals and responsibilities of romantic love pushes her away as he sinks deeper into his world. The final poignant moment has her stroking his hair as he sleeps, perhaps part mother and part longing. At that moment she is what he desired all along and yet he is in the faraway land of his dreams as he rides away with her on the stitched horse.

A wildly original film tells you all the plot you need to really know in the early minutes. Our protagonist is a immature underachiever who finds himself amongst those of the same ilk. they are a society of people who accept mediocrity as a passing phase where our young man/boy has his fulfillment and adventure in his dreams. His apartment is transformed into a late night TV set where his confidence and communication skills are highlighted where in real life he can be equally creepy and charming. The language changes are abundant and often cause an audience reaction to wonder if this is a dream or reality. This fantasy is short on Hollywood satisfaction but endless in dreaming non-sense. IFinding this as interesting without being clearly meaningful is difficult but peeked my interest none the less and I'm glad I finally got my hands on the DVD

It was the worst, most disgusting, unmindful, unrealistic movie i ever seen in my life.I have been watching since i am 10 nearly every week but i have never seen that much depressed movie. I just wasted my 100 minutes of my life for this rubbish. Never watch it, don't believe the votes...I cant even tell you how bad was it..If you really think it worths to watch then go on..But now i assure you that i feel depressed too.It just brought me some bad memories and how a person can be miserable that much.. If you are in depressed mind i strongly suggest you to not watch this rubbish..