Michel Gondry

Being a huge fan of the majestic duo of French music video director Michel Gondry and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, I was concerned when I first found out this picture would mark his departure with who I believe to be the greatest working screenwriter. After their last collaboration ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND (2004) I personally don't think that either man can ever top that masterpiece, but SCINCE OF SLEEP comes pretty close for Gondry. I believe ETERNAL SUNSHINE remains the better film, but SCIENCE is much more organic and it's also a lot more inventive visually. More of a surreal triumph for the sensory perception of sight.

Where ETERNAL SUNSHINE is like a timeless pop composition by the Beatles, SCIENCE is like a raw and thrashing punk riff from the early Clash, thoroughly enjoyable and great in a different way from its predecessor.

Garcia Bernal's character Stephane is an artist and inventor, like Michel Gondry, and Gondry just uses that character as a distorted almost auto-biographical version of himself to express how he experiences daily life with an almost child like hyper-active imagination. And since it is a film about the imagination, the always stylistically playful Gondry has an open canvas to be completely off-the-wall and insane: Ex. love making on top of a copy machine in the middle of an office and flying around just like peter pan - priceless.

Just as his previous incredible video work did for Bjork, Kylie Minogue, Daft Punk, the White Stripes - SCIENCE OF SLEEP reminded me at times of Pee Wee's Playhouse on some serious psychedelics, which is saying something for a kid's show that was already pretty far out there.

So although this is not Michel Gondry's feature film debut I consider it a debut of sorts, mostly because of the lack of screenwriter Kaufman And it's a beautiful and refreshing one.