Like Maurice Sendak, Stéphane (Gael Garc?nal), the protagonist of Michel Gondry's oddball dream film "The Science of Sleep," has his own night kitchen. However, his version is more like a fake kitchen you'd find in a TV studio. Make that a very strange TV studio with cardboard cameras and walls made out of egg cartons and a polka-dot shower curtain.
It is, of course, the stuff dreams are made of — Stéphane's dreams in particular. "Tonight, I'll show you how dreams are prepared," he tells us at the top of the film, stirring a big steaming pot like a demented Julia Child. "Random thoughts, little reminiscences of the day, maybe some memories of the past. ..."
A perfect recipe for free association, you might say. Just add life. Or fear. Or joy.
Fear is the more likely ingredient for Stéphane. Also vulnerability, childish preoccupations and an overactive imagination. Lured back to Paris from Mexico by his mother's (Miou-Miou) promise of a creative job, he ends up back in his old bedroom (still festooned with his toys) and stuck in a dingy office where he bores himself to death setting type all day.
Isolated and lonely, Stéphane often has trouble differentiating between his dreams and waking life. The only person he connects with is Stéphanie (Charlotte Gainsbourg), who lives across the hall. Though she is far more grounded than he is, they are soulmates of sorts, sharing a playful fantasy world where they ride a stuffed pony with button eyes to a cellophane sea under mattress-stuffing clouds. Or time-trip together using his wonderful handmade time machine, which can take you one second into the past or the future.
Think "Puff the Magic Dragon" without the druggy subtext.
Gondry, a Frenchman, is best-known for his out-there music videos and the hit Jim Carrey movie "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," which he directed and co-wrote with Charlie Kaufman. Free of Hollywood stars and collaborators, he's made an exceedingly fanciful film that's both more provocative and less successful than the Carrey piece.
Visually, the picture is a marvel. "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" comes to mind one moment, "Pee-wee's Playhouse" the next. And Gondry isn't afraid of taking risks — he leaves it up to us to figure out what's really happening and what's merely going on in his dreamer's head. He's the rare director who refuses to spell everything out for his audience.
Still, there is such a thing as too much whimsy, too many dreams melting in and out of real life. An unfettered film can also be, alas, an uninvolving one. Despite Bernal's triply appealing performance — who knew he could be charming in three languages? — the movie sometimes seems more trouble than it's worth.
Granted, you never know what's going to happen next — and how many movies can you say that about? But at the same time, after a point, you don't much care what happens next — at least not to the psychologically twinned Stéphane and Stéphanie.
Without an emotional context, the picture edges perilously close to preciousness and self-absorption. You'll never be bored, but you might find yourself thinking there's an ingredient or two missing from Stéphane's big boiling pot.
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