--Michel Gondry在The Sciense of Sleep當中，依然帶著我們坐上了他的魔毯，但是只差一點點就能衝破迷霧。
法國的創意導演Michel Gondry一定覺得很生氣，因為許多影評家在評論《王牌冤家》的時候，都把這部片的成功說得好像完全是查理考夫曼的功勞似的，不曉得是不是為了要證明《王牌冤家》其實不完全出自於奧斯卡金獎編劇查理考夫曼的創意，Gondry自編自導了另一部野心十足、考夫曼式(抱歉!)的夢境式愛情電影”The Science of Sleep”，可惜也是只差一點就能達到完美的境地。這部半自傳式的電影講的是一個年輕藝術家的故事，他總是活在自己的世界裡，遊走於幻想和感知現實的邊緣，這部電影就像一個發酵的麵團，Gondry運用瘋狂、原創的語言，來描繪一個蠢動不安、無法安分的靈魂。
這個靈魂的名字叫做Stephane，由墨西哥的性感小生Gael Garcia Bernal飾演，Bernal擁有性感的厚唇、深色的眼珠，被視為是強尼戴普的接班人，成為下一個最適合在電影裡化身為導演自我的人選 (至於Gondry如何解決男主角法文講得很糟的問題？簡單嘛! 安排他有一個墨西哥爹地就好了) 。Stephane主持一個電視節目—只不過，那是在他的夢境裡；他是一個感情過份充沛，做披頭四打扮的主持人，佈景裡有些窗戶，但也是可以變成電視螢幕，他現實生活中的人物會出現在這些螢幕當中。如果他從窗戶跳出去，他—不是在空中飛行—而是在空中游泳，極為投入地，游過大片的紙製城市佈景，他偶爾也會在真實世界中醒來，脫口而出一些我們大多數人不會隨便對別人說的內心話。
對Stephane來說，外面的世界太令人灰心，但是內心的世界又太孤寂。就像許多與眾隔絕的藝術家一樣，他也想要將這兩種世界結合在一起。如果他再努力一下，他可能會發現，住在他對門的女孩也想要結合這兩種世界。她的名字叫Stephanie (暗示他倆是靈魂伴侶的線索)，由英法混血的女演員Charlotte Gainsbourg飾演，她的頷骨突出，從某些角度看上去有種奇異的美。Stephane無法確定他對Stephanie的感覺，一開始，他喜歡的是一般眼光看上去比較漂亮的Zoe(Emma de Caunes飾)，但是Stephanie卻讓他找到了他的內心世界—雖然我們也搞不清楚那在哪裡。
The Science of Sleep最令人讚嘆的地方，就是Stephane笨拙地搭了一座通往Stephanie世界的橋樑那一幕，我從沒看過這樣的安排，他設計了一架時光機帶給她，這個機器可以將時光倒轉或往前「一秒」，當他不斷地按下又按下時光機的按鈕時，那像極了一對還未能確定對方心意的情侶，躊躇不決著不知誰該先踏出第一步 。接著他往前進了一秒到他突然吻住Stephanie—而且他想停留住—的時間，但是過了一會兒，他卻無法判斷Stephanie是睡著了，還是清醒著，還是只是在太虛幻境? 要好好享受這部電影，你得拋開對於時間、方位的常理判斷，嗜睡病才是這部電影的存在主義原則。
The Science of Sleep的劇情有時往前推展，有時卻停滯不前。除了時光機和其他幾個男女主角之間愚蠢的物品交換以外，電影中許多幕似乎都圍繞著相同的執迷原地打轉：那就是男主角令人難以忍受的自戀情結。當Gondry有機會擺脫這種沈悶無聊的氣氛時--我指的是Stephane抱著電話睡著，要繼續在夢境世界中與Stephanie交談那幕，Gondry卻突兀地切斷了這神來之筆，我們的男主角突然便成了愛婆婆媽媽、自怨自艾的醋罐子。Gondry可能以為用一個隱誨、寫實的開放性結尾來結束電影是他的正字標記，可是在他的其他同樣類型的愛情電影中(包括王牌冤家)，他的魔毯總是巧妙地低空掠過，你可以看到他所冒的險，但他又沒有真正落入災難當中。但是這次，Gondry卻不再相信他的魔毯—也就是他的藝術技巧，他讓我們重重地摔了下來。
*此片在美上映時正逢秋季。
Wake-up Fall
In The Science of Sleep, Michel Gondry’s magic-carpet ride almost makes it through the night.
By David Edelstein
It must have been vexing for the inventive French director Michel Gondry when critics like me reviewed the surreal sci-fi screwball romance Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind as if it were un film de Charlie Kaufman. As if to prove that Eternal Sunshine did not spring fully formed from the brow of its Oscar-winning screenwriter, Gondry has both directed and written his own ambitious, Kaufman-esque (sorry) dream romance, The Science of Sleep. He nearly pulls it off, too. The semi-autobiographical story of a solipsistic young artist who hovers on the border between his conscious and unconscious lives, the movie is yeasty stuff: Gondry has devised a loopy and original language for portraying a soul in ferment.
That soul, Stéphane, is embodied by Gael García Bernal, the Mexican dreamboat with the thick, pouty lips and dark eyes that can flash with enraged entitlement—and who looks to replace the aging Johnny Depp as the favorite alter ego of tortured filmmakers. (How does Gondry finesse his leading man’s lousy French accent in a film set in Paris? There was a Mexican dad!) Stéphane has his own TV show—at least, he has one in his dreams, where he’s an effusive, Beatle-banged host who presides over a set that’s partly composed of splattery spin art, and where people from his waking life pop up in windows that double as TV screens. Leaping out of those windows, he doesn’t fly; he swims, enchanted, over vast paper cityscapes. And sometimes he passes into the real world, where he blurts things out that most of us keep to ourselves.
For Stéphane, the external world is too disheartening, the internal world too lonely. Like many an alienated artist, he sets out to merge the two. He might even have found, in a flat across from the hall from his mother’s, a woman with a similar urge to merge. Her name is Stéphanie—a clue that she’s his soul mate right there—and she’s played by Charlotte Gainsbourg, the half-French, half-English actress with the jaw suitable for spearfishing: gorgeous from some angles, Modigliani-esque from others. Stéphane can’t quite make up his conscious mind about Stéphanie. At first, he prefers her more conventionally pretty friend, Zoe (Emma de Caunes). But something about Stéphanie gets him where he lives—wherever that is.
In the most magical sections of The Science of Sleep, Stéphane fumbles to build a bridge from his world to Stéphanie’s. I’ve never seen anything like the scene in which he introduces a time machine that can leap a second back or ahead: He goes back and back and back in a way that evokes a would-be lover’s hesitation over making that first move. Then he jumps a second ahead, to the lip-lock he hopes will be just around the time bend. After a while, it becomes difficult to know whether Stéphane is asleep, awake, or in some kind of fugue state. To enjoy the movie, you have to throw away your inner clock and compass. Narcolepsy is the new existentialism.
The Science of Sleep transports you, but it strands you, too. Apart from the time-machine bit and two or three other daft exchanges, Gondry’s scenes tend to circle around the same drain: the hero’s insufferable narcissism. And when the movie has a chance to lift off into the stratosphere—when Stéphane falls asleep with the phone on his chest, determined to keep talking to Stéphanie from inside his dreamworld—Gondry abruptly lets the air out of the whole conceit. The hero emerges as just another jealous, overmothered, self-pitying asshole—a bad bet. Gondry must think that the movie’s dark, realistic, unresolved finish is a mark of his integrity. But in the great madcap love stories (among them Eternal Sunshine), the magic carpet flies over the abyss: You get a great view, but you don’t take the plunge. Gondry loses faith in his carpet—which is to say, his own artistry. He drops you like a stone.
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