The Science of Sleep/La Science des Rêves (2006) - Good ideas buried in taxing whimsy, off romance

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+ Most Overrated Movie of the Year

A deliciously made, evocative, dreamscape-depicting poster for Michel Gondry's The Science of Sleep

Stéphane gets a job at an office that makes calenders, and he falls in love with his neighbor, who refuses his advances and is very troublesome.

The Science of Sleep is written and directed by great French filmmaker Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)), based on a bedtime story written by 10 year-old Sam Mounier.
Gael García Bernal (Babel (2006)) acts about as childishly as an actor can here, playing a character with a hard-to-believe, silly job across from Charlotte Gainsbourg (Nuremberg (2000, miniseries)), who is unattractive as the inexplicable object of his enamorment in this highly eccentric, goofy film.
The Science of Sleep has a few funny moments and ideas that it wins on for me. But overall it is a fairly taxing experience, because it is just too much, an accumulated feeling of too much overwhelms me when watching it. It awakens my private Franco-phobia, which beats red with much higher alarm at a cutesy whimsical French romance film like Amélie (2001). But The Science of Sleep is similarly unbearable for me.

Related posts:

Michel Gondry: Be Kind Rewind (2008) - Black and Def gleefully remake videos in Gondry's unsound script 

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 6 mil. $
Box office: 15 mil. $
= Box office success (returned 2.5 times its cost)
[The Science of Sleep premiered 11 February (Berlin International Film Festival) and runs 106 minutes. Shooting took place in France, including Paris. The film opened #25 to a 347k $ first weekend in 14 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #15 and in 243 theaters (different weeks) and grossed 4.6 mil. $ (30.7 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were France with 3.7 mil. $ (24.7 %) and the UK with 1.2 mil. $ (8 %). The film won a European Film award. Gondry returned with 8 short and video projects before his next theatrical engagement with Be Kind Rewind (2008). Bernal returned in Soy tu Fan (2006, ministeries) and theatrically in Babel (2006); Gainsbourg in Golden Door/Nuovomondo (2006). The Science of Sleep is fresh at 70 % with a 6.62/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of The Science of Sleep?

Be Kind Rewind (2008) - Black and Def gleefully remake videos in Gondry's unsound script

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Colorful, enticing, goofy poster for Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind

QUICK REVIEW:

A young man gets the responsibility of a video store, as its old owner Fletcher is going to a Fats Waller-meeting. But the loon, who lives in a nearby trailer, accidentally - via a power station, - erases every video's content! 

Melonie Diaz, Jack Black and Mos Def in Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind

 
The central conflict (recreating something on some of these now empty tapes) thus is so insignificant that it gets very hard to get really engaged in the film, even for someone who wants to be.

Jack Black in Be Kind Rewind

When leads Jack Black (School of Rock (2003)) and contrastingly photogenic Mos Def (The Italian Job (2003)) begin to make their new editions of video classics, 'sweding' them, as they put it, the circumstances are glaringly unbelievable. 
Still the film is a cozy, lightly amusing time, which holds a few funny scenes, - some of them involving Danny Glover (Lethal Weapon (1987)) and Mia Farrow (The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985)).

Mia Farrow and Danny Glover 'sweding' what movie? In Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind

The ending is sugary and dumb. Be Kind Rewind is essentially failed as a project.
French director Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)) completed two movies last year; the documentary Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy? and the French film, The Foam of the Days.

Michel Gondry has a way of making his films look better and more fun than they really are, - as with this poster for his Be Kind Rewind

Here's the trailer for the film

Budget: 20 mil. $
Box office: 30.5 mil. $
= Even Steven

What do you think of Be Kind Rewind and Michel Gondry's other films?