DVD Review: "The Science of Sleep"

This past weekend I had the pleasure of renting the film "The Science of Sleep," starring Gabriel Garcia Bernal ("Y Tu Mama Tambien," "The Motorcycle Diaries"). If you have the chance, I definitely recommend you take time to check it out.

Bernal stars as Stephane, a young man who has just moved from Mexico to France to work at a calender design agency and live with his mother. We quickly learn that Stephane is no ordinary guy though. He often confuses his real life with his dream life, in which he is the host of his own television show (StephaneTV), creates his own calendars and gets the girl of his dreams . That girl, coincidentally named Stephanie, is Stephane's neighbor.

Through the course of the film, Stephane and Stephanie struggle to connect on the same plane, which often can be annoying. Why director Michael Gondry chose to adapt a somewhat chaotic script using often confusing editing is beyond me, but the overall pseudo-artistic, low-budget feel of the film's special effects is so creative, that I could watch "The Science of Sleep" several times before noticing every interesting element of the heavily detailed scenes.

One of the things that attracted me to this film was that Bernal is known for distancing himself from the typical Hollywood picture; this film is definitely not your typical, high-budgeted, weakly-written, 50 million dollar production. That combined with Micheal Gondry's reputation for making thought-provoking films (he also directed "Eternal Sunshine for the Spotless Mind") was enough to beat out the Clint Eastwood war film "Flags of our Fathers" and the horror sequel "The Grudge 2," to become my favorite rental this weekend.

You can view the trailer below or here