Dreams and love are the subject of the Science of Sleep, a wondrous film by French Director Michel Gondry. This is a very playful humorous movie, quirky and wonderfully weird, easier to follow than Eternal Sunshine, but more difficult to understand, if that makes any sense! It revolves around the relationship between next-door neighbours Stephan and Stephanie, two young creative people living in Paris, and around Stephan's oniric world.
The Science shares some elements with Eternal Sunshine: 1/ The mixing of three different interlinked chronological moments and tempos, in this case the time of reality, the time of dream, and the time of almost sleep but not yet awake. 2/ The depiction of the complexities of the human heart and how difficult personal relationships can be. 3/ An oniric approach to reality, the importance of dreams in real life, and vice versa.
The dream world of Stephan is, like him, childish but delightful; the animators of the movie really succeed in projecting on the screen the personality of Stephen's dreams by using children-style animation made of animals, houses, and other elements made of cardboard, felt and papier-mache, put together like classical puppetry animation does. I loved the 70s feeling
of the movie in tones and style. The visual transcription of the dreams
is really funny and stylishly done using minimal special effects and
using mostly old-school craftsmanship animation.
The cast is reduced, as the movie focus mainly on three characters. I found Gael Garcia Bernal great and natural in his portray of Stephan, a childish young weird artist, emotionally insecure, creative but very destructive, and a little bit insane. The fact that the actor is baby-faced and short really helps to support the childishness of his character. Charlotte Gainsbourg is OK -a little bit hieratic perhaps- as Stephanie, an introverted insecure "artsy" person who shares many things with Stephan's world. Alain Chabat, very well known by French movies lovers, is great as Guy, Stephan's sound, cheeky and matter-of-fact friend.
A few downs in the movie. The analysis of the dreams being the purpose of Gondry's exploration, this fact somewhat dilutes the strength of a wonderful unconventional love story, which is, however, the core of the story. This won't engage many viewers. On the other hand, the end has no emotional closure, but is not open either - unresolved. It is logical as, after all, dreams end abruptly most times; however, I would have liked the movie to have some sort of closure. The scene related to the date at the Café, almost at the end of the movie, is perhaps the most abstract and difficult to understand.
The movie has a mix of reviews, mostly because it is difficult to understand at times and is really unconventional, which is what I love about it.
Eternal Sunshine is a philosophical analysis of the nature of love and relationships. It reflects very well the changing emotions associated with falling in love and the ups and downs of personal relationships, and how unnecessary it is to erase our emotional past to survive. None of this is said or discussed in the movie, as this is a metaphorical film that uses the visual narrative to approach these points.
Eternal Sunshine is one of those movies that many people would see twice to fully catch all the details, because the editing and what happens in the film is complex. There are three different narrative time moments, narrated in non-chronological order, sometimes overlapping each other. It is not a film for simple minded people or those who have to have everything simply explained and presented to them. The film needs of an attentive attention and mental involvement, but the poetry of the images, the oddity of the story will captivate you very soon and you won't even notice that you are making any effort to understand the whole thing.
Jim Carrey surprises everybody with a role that shows the great actor he can be, and how versatile he is, too. He's superb as Joel, a lonely insecure and depressed guy who tends to get involved with women who are his opposite, who faces love, abandonment, rejection, loneliness, and companionship. Also excellent (and outside of their usual roles) is Kate Winslet in her role as Clementine, a cheeky cheerful girl addicted to flashy hair dyes who is attracted to boring men.
The lyricism of the music, the surreal scenes, the poetic cinematography, the part of the movie showing Joel efforts to preserve the memories of the past he initially wanted to destroy, the fact that the special effects are no such a thing but camera tricks and the result of a meticulous preparation and tampering of the movie sets, adds even more artistic value to this unique piece. The director and the editor of the film really deserve a big praise, as the movie is indebted to them beyond belief.
The only flaws I saw in the movie are the little romance mini-stories related to the technicians and doctor of the Lacuna Clinic (which do not contribute much to a film that, otherwise, would have been perfect), and the outcome linked to those actions could have been presented in a different way.
I would not call this movie a comedy, but a light drama.
Eternal Sunshine is a magical, unique and unforgettable movie. A piece of art, really, and of the best movies by Gondry.
