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Rating: I have never considered myself a great cinema lover. My filmography, although quite extensive, revolves largely (at least the part I consider most "valuable") around the same genre/topic/fundamental concept, and there are three or four films that, among those I own, I judge (at least for myself) essential and necessary, faithful companions in moments that are a bit like that, a dangerous chasm between boredom, apathy, and melancholy (spleen?). One of these is "The Science of Sleep" (Michel Gondry, 2006).
I have always liked to consider it as the materialization of many of my thoughts, as the cinematic transposition of dreams, nightmares, and the anguishes of a romantic and dreamy soul, which always sails on the verge between reality and imagination, between real and utopian, and which finally gives in, exhausted, to one of the two sides of the coin (I'll let the viewer figure out which one).
It's no coincidence that this film fascinates me so much: the director is the same as "Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind" (shameful the Italian translation of the title), the second of the cinematic cornerstones I mentioned at the beginning: the same dreamlike structure, the same visionary quality and incredible ability to merge two worlds that we have always tried to keep distinct, at least while awake (to stay sane), endings with different shared traits, but the same fundamental desire from the director to explore the intangible matter that governs our thoughts when we sleep.
Stephane is a young Franco-Mexican who, after his father's death, decides to join his mother in Paris. He moves into an apartment of his own, where he meets his neighbor, Stephanie. It’s not love at first sight, at least not for him, initially more interested in her friend Zoe. Only later does he begin to acknowledge what is developing between him and his creative neighbor, just in time for the viewer to get familiar with Stephane's peculiar skill. The young man has trouble distinguishing dream from reality: the two worlds constantly intersect in his view, he dreams of being awake and daydreams. This quite distorts his perspective on things, but it does so in an awkward, childlike (in a good way), and fairytale-like manner.
In the dream, the boy idealizes his story with Stephanie: they in reality share common thoughts, proximity of ideas, but as often happens, they see their relationship differently (the eternal love-friendship contrast). It is precisely in the dreamlike world that the boy takes refuge; it's there that he realizes, in a congenial world to him, his happy life with the girl he loves. Stephane's universe is made of toys with reassuring shapes, cardboard buildings that magically rise as he passes by, like in children's pop-up books, plasticine figures skiing on cotton mountains, rivers of cellophane, and toy ponies.
The contrast between dream and reality becomes increasingly stark as the story approaches its conclusion: in the "real" working world, the boy finds success (thanks to the influence of the girl, who helps him believe in himself and overcome his complexes), but it is his private life that slowly slides into a black hole, from which it will never emerge. Everything, in the end, travels on the edge of misunderstanding, and the last scenes are also the most touching, with the final dialogue between the two that, I'm sure, will remind everyone of at least one moment in their lives when they found themselves in the same situation.
The ending, then, silent (with only soft and touching piano notes in the background), is incredible: so real in conveying its melancholy, simultaneously fairytale-like but also so bitter.
The film is delicate, subtle, made of the same stuff dreams are made of: it eludes interpretations, suggests escape routes, but in the end, when the end credits roll, you find yourself as in the morning when the alarm clock goes off, forcefully tearing you from your ideal world you were imagining. And there you remain, sitting on the bed, staring into the void, for those few seconds that seem hours, trying to make sense of what you've just seen/lived, seeking useful insights to improve a reality that, alas, is always more bitter than they would have us believe.
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