The science of sleep

The exposition of the movie "Science of Sleep" Michael Gondry introduces us to the Fabula of the story. In the opening scene we see Stephan (Gael Garcia Bernal) The protagonist who is confused and lost between reality and his dreams. Michael Gondry shows us how sometimes we can get lost in the thin line between our reality and the nightmares. Stephan is like a 10 year old boy who is trapped in a body of a young man. The cradle-bed he sleeps in, car prints bed sheets and his inventions, all serve as motifs that keep repeating as a reminder of Stephan's childlike character. Stephan develops a friendship with his neighbor Stephanie (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and she becomes the only person who can see his dream world. Yet in the act two of the movie, Stephan finds himself in love with Stephanie who wouldn't open her feeling toward him. So he starts to feel rejected by his shy neighbor and starts to lose control over his dreams mixing it with reality.His love for Stephanie makes him more confused and lost in his dreams.

Syuzhet of the movie is to show that we often try to escape reality in our dreams yet here our main character is trying to escape dreams by reality. I think Gondry was trying to say that dreams would be so perfect if only we could have a full control over them. The Mise-en-scene is structured around Stephan's imagination made of cardboard mockups of the set of Metropolis, hand made stuffed animals and lego toys. The movie uses stop motion in the style of Russian animation to give a certain feeling of surrealism. Movie is followed with a first person narration of Stephan's voice which switches from French to English and sometimes to Spanish. The movie is a strange way of storytelling that is unpredictable,exciting and in some arguable way open-ended.