Movie Details
| Title: | Science of Sleep | |
| Director: | Michel Gondry | |
| Year: | 2006 | |
| Genre: | Surreal | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 10.04.06 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (3)
- Be Kind Rewind
- Dave Chapelle's Block Party
- Mood Indigo
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 10.04.06 | Regal Arbor | To me, this is the best that movies can be. I just deleted two really pretentious follow-up sentences so I think i'll leave that nice and vague. This is a very unreal story about real life... and how it sucks. It's great that Gondry draws very authentic emotion and drama from the most whimsical source... and he does it in a way that's uniquely his, completely distinguished from everybody else in the game today. Its imaginitive surrealism is woven perfectly into the fabric of Gael Bernal's (and by extension Gondry's as well) reality creating a whole movie full of those little moments spent in the infinite limbo between awake and asleep. Through that, it tells a timelessly poignant story of unrequited, or rather ill-fated love with charm, innocence and grace. It's really quite special. I can understand people who are not fans of Gondry's work - hey it's not for everyone nor should it be - but i can't understand people who like his stuff but say this isn't as good as the rest. I think this is his first film that's successfully 100%. Of course I don't know the man personally or anything, but I do feel his Director's Label disc content has a lot of his personality imprinted on it, and this film feels much more like a natural progression from that than Eternal Sunshine does. I still really like Eternal Sunshine by the way, I just feel that that's like 75% him and this is 100%. So yeah, I'm quite taken with this. I had a great time in the theater being sad... i'm thinking it may be a bit too much to call myself a hopeless romantic creative-type like Bernal is in the film, but I think most if not all of us have aspects of ourselves that we like to think of as that. The Shakespearian romantic who goes crazy with love and does stupid things, the inner child who creates his own world when he's stuck in a shitty real one, the stalwart guy stuck gazing at a woman he wants but cannot have. I'm sure it's not just me, so I won't claim credit for all of us... but Gondry captures and communicates all of those emotions perfectly. It's also a shame that Bernal's character is sort of crazy... so you feel for the poor girl caught up in it all too. I also love that Gondry makes a film not for Hollywood but for himself. The movie's maybe 50%, 60% subtitled, tossing in some profanity and a glimpse of casual nudity when the story needs it even though it relegates him to an R-rating. This movie being R is bullshit... it's nothing if not made for teenagers struggling through that messy first big love. In my theater they were showing This Film is not Yet Rated right next door. People need to see that movie so we can either change the way movies are rated or the outlook that mass audiences have toward them. Whether the average teenage American will go see this film or not, they shouldn't have to sneak in. anyway, tangent... I can't wait for Gondry's next one; to see what he does with Jack Black and Mos Def. |
