"All men whilst they are awake are in one common world: but each of them, when he is asleep, is in a world of his own." Plutarch, 1st Century essayist
"I dream, therefore I exist." J. August Strindberg, 19th century dramatist
"To sleep, perchance to dream" William Shakespeare, 16th century playwright
Humans have long been fascinated and perplexed by dreams, those wild and usually surreal "movies" that play within our heads while we sleep. While they often seem to make sense to the dreamer as they occur, they usually come off as muddled to the conscious brain, especially as they fade away into the nether regions of one's mind.
Dreams are the topic du jour in "The Science of Sleep," director Michael Gondry's dreamy follow-up to his critically acclaimed and equally surreal "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind." Completely original and successfully working on a variety of levels, it was my pick for best film of 2004.
Alas, brilliance is a hard thing to maintain, equal, or top, and while this film is similarly ambitious, it's nowhere as deep, moving, smart, or entertaining as that terrific, previous effort. In fact, it's as light as a bizarre dream in that it's somewhat interesting if bewildering as it occurs, but is instantly forgettable once it's over.
While the film is similarly about trying to find love and how that affects one's waking and subconscious mental state, it feels superficial at best, especially in comparison to its predecessor. What it also lacks is screenwriter Charlie Kaufman who plotted that film and other cinematic head-trips such as "Adaptation" and "Being John Malkovich."
Working from his own script, Gondry goes for the same sort of fantastical approach at storytelling, but lacks the right touch to pull it off. Thus, what seemed enjoyably quirky in those other films quickly feels labored and just odd once we get the gist of what the filmmaker is trying to accomplish.
Here, our intrepid protagonist -- convincingly played by Gael Garcia Bernal -- lives in something of a dream world where his one-man TV studio (complete with cardboard cameras and him running from one position -- musician, talent, techie, etc. -- to the next) represents his subconscious state (interviewing various people from his past and present life).
In the real world, he's an aspiring artist who gets a job working at a calendar production shop where he's unhappy with his assignments and gets all sorts of aggressive advice from another worker (Alain Chabat). At home, he ends up falling for his neighbor Stéphanie (Charlotte Gainsbourg), but tries to keep her from knowing he lives across the hall, even though both are kindred spirits in the way they look at life and dreams.
And it's the latter, and/or their daydream cousins, which keep popping up, interrupting or complementing (depending on one's viewpoint and/or acceptance of them) the various plot threads. In keeping with the thematic material, Gondry trudges heavily through some thick representationalism where theatrical type props stand in for reality and Tim Burton looking stop-motion animation runs rampant, presumably symbolizing the protagonist's childlike imagination, mindset, and/or desires.
I understand what the filmmaker is trying to achieve with all of that, but in the end, it simply doesn't work and comes off as superficially abstract. Without Kaufman's innovative input and guideposts to direct him, Gondry ends up lost in his own dreamy world, resulting in a film that's quirky at first, but soon wears out its welcome when we realize it lacks enough depth and is just running around in circles. After a while, I was hoping the alarm clock would sound and put an end to this existential, cinematic experiment. "The Science of Sleep" rates as a 4 out of 10.
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