In Between Dreams

Other people’s dreams are, without exception, fantastically boring. One’s own dreams, of course, are endlessly fascinating in a solipsistic sort of way. Bearing this in mind, Michel Gondry’s new film Science of Sleep was going to have to pull out all the stops to impress. It falls into that same category as Being John Malkovich, I Heart Huckabees, Mullholand Drive or Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind (also Gondry) films which jettison narrative cohesion in favour of wilfully incomprehensible plots and garbled philosophy. But whereas I Heart Huckabees was as hollow and charmless as they come, and Eternal Sunshine suffered from unsympathetic leads, Science of Sleep is charming in an ingenuous, Gallic sort of way. It’s Amelie, but on acid. And with cellophane.

So here’s the plot: Stephane (Gael Garcia Bernal) has moved to Paris from Mexico where he attempts, in his own sweet, ineffectual way, to woo his neighbour, the prickly Stephanie (Charlotte Gainsborough.) Standing in the way of his seduction are his lecherous boss Guy and his surreal, Dali-esque dreams which increasingly encroach on his waking existence. After that, things become a little more nebulous. There are the dreams themselves; not the sort you get from over-indulging in camembert, but bad-trip, Lucy-In-The-Sky-With-Diamonds dreams. It’s never quite clear where these dream sequences end and real life begins, which puts us in the same position as bewildered and frustrated Stephane who finds himself acting out his subconscious fantasies and waking up to the aftermath.

And the cellophane? Where does that come into all of this? Stephane’s dreams are realised in true Here’s-One-I-Made-Earlier-style, all cardboard tubes, felt, papier mache, and yes, reams of cellophane. It is this ‘unmitigated whimsy,’ as Mark Kermode put it, that may irritate many cinema-goers. Some may see these forays into Blue Peter territory as poor compensation for an insubstantial plot; all style over substance. Nevertheless these Surrealist dream interludes with their Arts and Crafts trappings are arrestingly beautiful and earned the designers Pierre Pell and Stephane Rozenbaum the award for Best Production Design at the European Film Awards.

As existential comedies go, Science of Sleep is far superior to any of Mullholland/ Malkovich/ Huckabees, with its combination of off-beat humour, a magnetic lead turn from Bernal and intriguing visual effects. So, would I recommend it? Yes, if you like that sort of thing; existential comedies are something of an acquired taste. Just be prepared for strange dreams.