Science of Sleep - Guide to Dreaming

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Movie
German title Science of Sleep - Guide to Dreaming
Original title La Science des rêves
Country of production France
original language English
French
Spanish
Publishing year 2006
length 106 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
JMK 6
Rod
Director Michel Gondry
script Michel Gondry
production Georges Bermann
Frédéric Junqua
music Jean-Michel Bernard
camera Jean-Louis Bompoint
cut Juliette Welfling
occupation

Science of Sleep - Instructions for Dreaming (Original title: La Science des rêves ) is a French feature film from 2006 . Directed by Michel Gondry , who also wrote the script . The main role was played by Gael García Bernal . The piece was produced by Partizan . The film tells a tragicomic story using surrealist means .

action

The shy Stéphane Miroux comes to Paris from Mexico after the death of his father, with whom he has lived since his parents separated . Because he likes to draw and invent, his mother got him a job there for a picture calendar company . However, the job turns out to be office work. His design proposals are rejected as not for sale. Because of his poor knowledge of French, he has to talk to his three work colleagues in English.

In his dreams, Stéphane is the presenter of his own TV show "Stéphane TV". He has had difficulty telling dream and reality apart since childhood. Among other things, he dreams of enchanting the boss at work and taking power in the company himself.

When a young woman moves in across from Stéphane, Stéphane helps carry her piano up the stairs. He injured his hand in the process. The new neighbor - her name is Stéphanie - invites him to her apartment, where he is treated by her friend Zoé. Zoé lies to him that they work for a music company, which Stéphanie does not approve of. Stéphane, who speaks mainly English, finds Zoé more attractive at first, but falls in love with Stéphanie over time.

Stéphane's experiences are becoming increasingly unreal. He and Stéphanie create a shared fantasy world. For example, they use a self-made time machine that can move a second back into the future or the past. And they think up a story about a boat and begin to implement it with modest means into reality.

Over time, Stéphane doubts that Stéphanie really likes him and believes that everything she experienced was just a dream. In the end, he wants to go back to Mexico. Before that, he pays his neighbor a visit. He sees that she has finished tinkering the story about the boat.

History of origin

The French director Michel Gondry was with his English language film Forget mine not! Received critical acclaim in 2004 and returned to his home country from the United States to make a film. The idea for the autobiographical story had come to him years earlier when he was filming the music video for Everlong by the Foo Fighters . This is about a couple who “share” their dreams. The film was shot on 35 mm for seven weeks . Most of the film takes place in the Paris house where the director lived with his family while working as a calendar designer. The dream sequences were filmed six months earlier in Gondry's house in Villemagne . The production cost of the film were approximately six million US dollars .

The role of Stéphane was cast to the Mexican Gael García Bernal , who had achieved world fame with leading roles in films such as La Mala Educación - Bad Education (2004) and Amores Perros (2000). Rhys Ifans had also previously been in discussion for the role.

reception

The film premiered on February 11, 2006 at the 2006 Berlin International Film Festival outside of the competition. It was then shown at several other film festivals, for example the Moscow Film Festival and the Munich Film Festival . On August 16 of the same year, Science of Sleep - A Guide to Dreaming was released in French cinemas, on September 28 in German and on September 29 in Austrian.

The film played in theaters around 15 million US dollars a - of which around five million in the United States and nearly four million in France , where 570,000 people visited the film. 147,000 cinema-goers saw the film in Germany, 26,000 in Switzerland and 23,000 in Austria.

The majority of the critics received the film well. Sebastian Handke wrote in the Tagesspiegel that the result of the different materials used in the film - imperfect stop-motion animation with everyday routines and advanced computer technology - is a "feast for the eyes in love with detail, in which reality and vision increasingly overlap." -American critic James Berardinelli, however, complained that the film was confusing and presumptuous.

Awards

The production designers Pierre Pell and Stéphane Rozenbaum were honored for Science of Sleep - Instructions for Dreaming at the presentation of the European Film Prize 2006 in the category Best Artistic Contribution .

literature

  • Lukas Bertha: The surreal aesthetics in Michel Gondry's films "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and "La Science des rêves" . Thesis. Faculty of Philological and Cultural Studies at the University of Vienna, 2012 ( PDF file; 636 kB ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for Science of Sleep - Instructions for dreaming . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , September 2013 (PDF; test number: 107 374 V).
  2. ↑ Age rating for Science of Sleep - Instructions for dreaming . Youth Media Commission .
  3. ↑ a b art-perfect
  4. ↑ Box Office Mojo - The Science of Sleep (accessed May 20, 2008)
  5. ↑ Lumiere - database on film attendance in Europe: La science des rêves (accessed on May 20, 2008)
  6. ↑ Sebastian Handke in Der Tagesspiegel
  7. ↑ James Berardinelli on ReelViews (English)