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The Science of Sleep (Gondry, 2006)
IMDB Link
“In dreams, emotions are overwhelming.”
Micheal Grondy’s “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” is one of my favorite romantic movies ever. Because of my very large penis, most romantic movies don’t do much for me, but “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” was different. Because of that, I had been looking forward to Grondy’s next romantic movie, “The Science of Sleep”. But when it was released some of the reviews and initial reception made me wary. I could not credit “Eternal Sunshine” to only Grondy, because it was written by Charlie Kaufman, and had a great, experienced cast, while “The Science of Sleep” was Grondy’s solo work.
I should have trusted Grondy more. While not as good as “Eternal Sunshine”, “The Science of Sleep” is still brilliant. Stéphane (Gael García Bernal) has come from Mexico to France to live with his mother, after his father’s death (who he used to live with). Stéphane is a quiet, sensitive artist, who when he joins his mother, gets a job at a calendar making office. His job is manual crap, which depresses him, as he assumed it would be more creative. He meets his next door neighbor, Stéphanie (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and while Stéphanie seems to like him, Stéphane instead like her friend. After a while though, he starts to like Stéphanie, but then by then, she thinks of him as a friend.
“It’s not fair. She changed exactly the second I started to like her.”
Now, all this seems like your average romantic comedy, but this is Grondy. We don’t just follow Stéphane, but we go into his head. Grondy shows us his dreams, and occasionally, he mixes reality with dreams, and we, like Stéphane, confuse the two. Also, we watch Stéphane’s inner thoughts, not by hearing them, but by strange scenes, where we go inside his head, and it looks like a TV set (called Stéphane TV) and he talks to himself or the characters he meets during the day.
Unfortunately, these are both the movie’s unique and weak parts. The dreams are not always interesting, while cute and funny, they don’t actually have a dream like feel. Plus, it feels sometimes too long. Only a few dreams are really good, with one touching one, where Stephane tries to reach Stepahnie, but instead lies on a big rock, and can’t go any further.
“She smiles. I bend over a rock, to try to reach her. And my stomach compressed, hurts.”
5/5
Funny Games (Haneke, 1997)
IMDB Link
Oh, I’m sorry, was this supposed to be shocking?
I don’t know, people, but this whole idea has been done before. The family under hostage has been done. The director being cocky about the audience enjoying violent has been done. This was done in 1997, and I can’t understand why it would have made any impact.
First of all, the movie does not have any gore or nudity. Yeah, I know, people will say what is not shown is sometimes more scary, but come on, that’s not true. It usually isn’t, otherwise, we’d have movies where everything was black, and we’d hear voices. That’s not a movie, that’s a book. It can only occasionally be effective, but in “Funny Games” that’s done for the duration of the movie, and it does not seem to be an effective technique, but more like a statement by the director.
And also, the director kept breaking the fourth wall. This again sometimes works, but the reason directors rarely use this, is because it is usually ineffective. Again, the point of this, is for the director to seem smart, and is another obvious statement about violence in movies and all that. There is also a really bad scene, when someone uses a remote control to rewind the actual scene, and re-do again.
Finally, the lingering shots. There is one specific scene, where it is 10 minutes of two people sitting and doing nothing. Seriously, I actually thought the movie got stuck or something. Is that realism? Where does realism come in, when the director kept breaking the fourth wall. You can’t have it both ways.
It starts off very well, because it was tension filled, and you felt like something really bad was about to happen. But when the hostage situation started, the tension was gone, and it started to get more and more boring. I read somewhere that this is director Haneke’s anti-thriller. Okay, but why should that be commendable?
2/5
Under the Moonlight [Zir-e noor-e maah] (Mir-Karimi, 2001)
IMDB Link
Sayyed (Hossein Parastar) has been studying in a religious school, to become a cleric for his village, at the behest of his father, and to follow his grandfather’s footsteps. However, now that he is close to his graduation, he gets second thoughts. He feels like something is missing, and does not seem to want to wear the clerical robe. When he does buy a robe, it gets stolen by a young boy, and while he thinks it is a sign from God not to wear the robe, he still looks for the boy.
This leads him to a place under a bridge, where a couple of homeless people live. And this is the core of the movie, as Sayyed gets to understand life, not from the religious school, but from the sufferings of others.
All this may sound familiar, as it is a concept that has been done many times before. A lot of movie characters grow up, by being exposed to lower class people. What makes “Under the Moonlight” slightly more unique is that, as far as I know, its one of the only movies to be told from a student Muslim cleric position, and given that it’s an Iranian movie, it does have the country’s simple and realistic approach. Sayyed does not speak much. He says very little, and like us, he is usually just the observer.
The movie’s best scene is when one of the homeless characters dictates to another on a typewriter to write a letter to God. The student cleric sits and listens.
“To Dear God the Great.
Hello. The purpose of bothering you was to say:
(sarcasm) Well done! We take our hat off. Thanks for your justice!
You used to be such a gentleman. This is the way of the young man.
What did we do wrong that we should always live here? We are damn tired. Everybody calls us the under bridge ones. Thanks for your justice. Where did your generosity go? With all this richness, give us a drop too. What was our sin to be born your creature?”
4/5
Like Minds (Read, 2006)
IMDB Link
Who does Australia think they are, making movies? They usually don’t make anything that good. “Like Minds” seem to be one of the current popular Australian movies, and I’m guessing, it is because it is better than other Ozy movies.
It is still not that good though. Alex (Eddie Redmayne) is smart and a rebel, in an upper class boarding school. One day, he gets a weird, quiet roommate called Nigel (Tom Sturridge). After a bit of gay glances and dislike of each other, Nigel gets close to Alex, and a series of murders start. Oh wait, I forgot. All this is told in a flashback sequence, because when the movie starts, Alex is held by the police for killing Nigel. Ohhh.
The movie then gets into all different areas, including some secret family clan history, and after thirty minutes or so, you get really get tired, because neither Alex or Nigel will interest you.
Also, when the movie was released in America, it was retitled as “Murderous Intent”. Now that’s a title that matches a movie like this perfectly!
2/5