2006
Written and Directed by Michel Gondry
Starring Gael Garcia Bernal and Charlotte Gainsbourg
Michel Gondry has had one of the most remarkably well-respected career of any young director in recent memory. With only one successful film so far (the brilliant Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), Gondry has already become a director who is A-listed among cinema freaks, and he's getting more well-known among the majority of people who don't care who directed these things in the first place. This could be a good sign, as the more popular a name gets, the more likely that name is going to get the money and the freedom to make the sort of films they want to make. The history of film is rife with stories of filmmakers losing control of their work to studios, and the recent years are full of movies that are written and produced by committees, with directors relegated to the seat of a hanger-on. If one believes, as the Factual Opinion does, that the true artistry and potential of film is most realized when there are fewer cooks in the kitchen; than one can celebrate the fact that through the spread of DVD's, a cheap and easily available way for unknown films to create their own audience has beget an appetite for quality in film that remains unsated by films like The Covenant, Spanglish and the like. While it's certainly improbable that the next few years will resemble the creative freedom of the 70's, when directors previously enjoyed big budgets and big stars to make art films, small studio outlets, limited releases and DVD profits have made it much more attractive for directors like Steven Soderbergh, Michael Haneke and, yes, Michel Gondry to turn down studio scripts in favor of controlling their own artistic output.
What does this have to do with a movie about dreams, featuring the the up and coming superstar Gael Garcia Bernal? The Science of Sleep is just a movie after all, regardless of whatever movement or sea change it may represent, and whether it's any good should determine it's reception; not whether or not it's a sign that better movies are coming.
The truth is that Sleep isn't that good of a movie. It's ridiculously creative in moments, funny in others and irritating in the rest. Following around an oddly immature young man as he attempts, vainly and pathetically, to win the heart of his next door neighbor while also immersing itself, almost completely, in the young man's dreams: well, that's the sort of thing that Gondry would excel at. He does--by halves. The portions of the movie that take place in Bernal's mind are quirky little scenes, most of which are really interesting and unlike anything else (except for Gondry's previous work.) The scenes that are set in the real world are anything but--it's almost as if Gondry reworked portions of Eternal Sunshine or Human Nature and recast them. Although Bernal's, and his ridiculously cliched (yet hilarious) co-star Alain Chabat, that redeems these scenes--but not because he's a brilliant actor, no, but because his natural charisma and ferocious good looks make him impossible to hate. We should hate him--he is, after all, one of the most infantile leading men in any movie since Forrest Gump--but we don't, because he's Gael Garcia Bernal. It's a touching performance, sadly used to prop up a movie that consists of little but brilliant shots and a dull, overly sentimental script.
Comments