Interview. Michel Gondry.

Following a slew of already-classic music videos, the remarkable Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and the rousing Dave Chappelle's Block Party, French director Michel Gondry's playfully surreal new feature, The Science of Sleep, finally opens in US theaters. Sean Axmaker's got several question for him and, in turn, Gondry's got one for him.

Related: For AO Scott, writing in the New York Times, this new film, "for all its blithe disregard of the laws of physics, film grammar and narrative coherence, strikes me as perfectly realistic, as authentic a slice of life as I've encountered on screen in quite some time."

"Sweet, crazy, and tinged with sadness, Michel Gondry's new feature The Science of Sleep is a wondrous concoction," writes J Hoberman in the Voice. "Crosscutting between Stéphane's dreams and reality, reprising material in a variety of different contexts, The Science of Sleep is an extraordinarily playful movie. The mood is borderline fey. But no less than its hero, the movie is too strange and even infantile to be whimsical."

Todd at Twitch: "Those who get it... are likely to get it hard and so, while unlikely to further the cult of Gondry, The Science of Sleep should further cement his status among already existing acolytes."

Updated.

"A Gondry film has normally been a destination date for its dogged innovation and sui generis worldview," writes James Crawford, opening Reverse Shot's round on the film for indieWIRE. "[I]t pained me, then, to see that while it has craft in spades and a smattering of quietly charming moments, Gondry's latest is ragged and overfull - an undeniably singular, personal statement that paradoxically lacks any manner of focus or bearing, a mundane endeavour from one of contemporary cinema's most febrile and astonishing minds."

Brett Michel in the Boston Phoenix: "Unkempt pastiches of narrative transgressions threaten collapse, but Gondry wills his balancing act to work... a one-of-a-kind original."

"How can a film as witty and imaginative as The Science of Sleep be so unsatisfying?" asks Steve Erickson in Gay City News, where he finds the film "filled with concepts that would be dazzling - if they only lasted for three minutes."

Though, for whatever reason, he has to slap down Andrew Bujalski - twice - along the way, Armond White eventually gets to his point: "These days, given the (ironic) dumbing-down of technologically advanced digital-cinema, few films can equal Gondry's homespun craft.... He's what Tim Burton would be if Burton had never bonded with monster movies or gone Hollywood."

Eric Kohn writes the New York Press cover story on Gondry, but at his Screen Rush, he adds, "I've got more to say about this quintessentially quirky artist than the published piece might lead you to believe. So here's my extended version, which I think tells a much stronger tale of success and frustration in the limelight."

At AICN, Gondry talks with Quint not only about Science but also about Be Kind, Rewind. He's going to be taking a rather surprising approach to all those remakes.

"Much of Michel Gondry's talent derives from his being completely undisciplined as a filmmaker," observes Bradley Steinbacher in the Stranger. Nonetheless, here: "Beneath all the visual trickery is a beating heart - unfortunately, Gondry is all too eager to send that heart into palpitations."

"Gondry's visual imagination could be the liveliest in movies today - and can you think of a more alluring vessel for that imagination than [Gael García] Bernal?" asks Johnny Ray Huston in the San Francisco Bay Guardian.

Earlier: Lynn Hirschberg's profile of Gondry in the NYT Magazine.

Updates: "This movie walks a fine line, and it's going to drive some viewers absolutely bats," warns Salon's Andrew O'Hehir. "I think that's because, underneath its layers of fancy and confection, it cuts pretty close to the bone. But if you were ever a Stéphane or a Stéphanie, passionately in love but trapped in your own head - and if you're at peace with that part of yourself now - The Science of Sleep may hold you suspended in magical space, up there near the ceiling."

Carina Chocano in the Los Angeles Times: "The Science of Sleep isn't as intricately plotted as Eternal Sunshine, nor does it rush to quite as satisfying an end. It doesn't have anyplace in particular to go, and it takes its time not getting there. But the sightseeing is fantastic."

Matt Singer talks with Gondry for IFC News.

"Michel Gondry's work is so hip that it's easy to forget what a romantic he is," writes Marcy Dermansky. "[I]t's no surprise that The Science of Sleep is unduly clever. The cleverness, fortunately, comes off as fresh."

Robert Keser at Bright Lights After Dark: "As a cultural record, The Science of Sleep usefully brings to the surface a robust yet barely acknowledged undercurrent of American cinema, the Peter Pan conception of manhood as a Long Adolescence that dates back to the Star Wars movies but now powers pop hits like The Break-Up, Failure to Launch, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and all Jackass movies of the past, present and future. When Stéphane dream-broadcasts from his corrugated cardboard TV-studio, he's his own Anchorman, mining an emotional self-indulgence that prioritizes the individual while it shuts out responsibility to the community. For all this movie's charm, isn't it time to explore the art of being fully awake?"

Alison Willmore at the IFC Blog: "[L]ike Stéphane, the film can't seem to get out of its own head, and it rambles along like a disjointed anecdote that makes more sense to the teller than the tellee. Why does Stéphane ram his head into the door? What the hell does Stéphanie want, anyway? Who let Gondry write the script for his next film, Be Kind Rewind?"

Posted by dwhudson at September 22, 2006 12:21 AM