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By Dawn Januszkiewicz

Amongst a frenzy of soft images and creative compositions, we visit a world somewhere to the right of Never Never Land and follow Stephane Miroux, artist extraordinaire, through a rat race that is unlike any other.

Somewhere in the shaggy hair and twinkling eyes of the docile Miroux, played by Gael Garcia Bernal, the audience is drawn in by his innocent charm and sincerity. His child-like qualities are juxtaposed with his terribly mundane routine. His typesetter position could make data entry look like an extramarital affair.

A dull job and a microscopic apartment in your mother's apartment building could cause an artist's heart to cease beating. His heart beats at the rhythm of his glorious dreaming and his goal to publish a calendar of images he designed and entitled Destructionism. The images are violent and dramatic, and they are the only destructive images in the movie. Miroux's life is a series of lucid dreams, but most of them appear to be central to the child-like comfort zone of plush ponies, cotton clouds and cellophane rivers.

The imagery carries us into the clouds and the superior acting of Bernal and Charlotte Gainsbourg as his neighbors, and love interest, Stephanie, keeps us afloat on a river. The scenes of this movie, much like director Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, are not shown in a linear fashion; only, Science of Sleep is not as action-packed, complex or layered as Eternal Sunshine.

You are given a key during the introduction when you are shown the recipe of how to create a dream. After that, it is left to your interpretation. When you look into this mirror you may see a man who is rejected outright, who drives his woman away or a man who has been riding a pony for far too long.

Miroux spends his time fawning over Stephanie once he realizes that her friend Zoe is out of his league. Miroux and Stephanie share the ability to dream and make their dreams real. Stephanie is a starving artist as well. Her apartment is filled with paintings and crafts, whereas Miroux's dreams are his reality.

Their actual relationship is masked by his illusions; the audience is left interpreting Miroux's dreams until the end, when Stephanie fans out the smoke. This movie is beautiful enough to watch time and time again, and confusing enough to watch it for the first time several times over.

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