Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Min is, in my opinion, one of the best films of the last few years, so when I found out this was his film, I became much more excited and made sure to catch the premiere. It didn't disappoint me - the film's melange of surrealism and realism, of sleep and 'reality', of life and waking life.
This film takes the eXistenZ examination of virtual reality and really real reality and moves it one step further, where dream becomes real, and where the lines between sleep and not- sleep become blurred. At times this led to a bit of confusion, trying to grasp exactly what was happening - and there were little leaps here and there where things were happening that seemed not to make sense based on what we had seen - but in general, not knowing whether Stephane was dreaming or not - or whether, indeed, the entire film was actually a dream - heightened the fantastic aspect of the film, and made the story more enticing.
Bernal put on an expectedly strong performance, and Gainsbourg gave us nothing to frown about - their chemistry and, at times, lack of chemistry made the bizarre non-relationship between them perhaps the most real aspect of the film - and some scenes, like the scene where she finds the note, and the scene where they're 'married' on Stephane TV, are truly magical. But what truly stole the show was the stop-motion animation - especially the toilet paper roll city - and the very clever 'machines' like the 1-second time travel machine, which were magical to watch and compounded the dream sequences in an NFB meets Keith Haring kind of way.
Bernal's character, however, was immature to the point of being mean - which weighed down whatever sympathy one might have had for him. At some points his selfishness, and his cruel insults, started to grate on me. It didn't hurt the story so much, but it made me roll my eyes more than the film's surrealism ever did.
All in all, even with the moments of confusion and the character flaws of Stephane, the film was magical in all the right places. Fans of Eternal Sunshine will definitely approve and applaud. 8.5/10.
This film takes the eXistenZ examination of virtual reality and really real reality and moves it one step further, where dream becomes real, and where the lines between sleep and not- sleep become blurred. At times this led to a bit of confusion, trying to grasp exactly what was happening - and there were little leaps here and there where things were happening that seemed not to make sense based on what we had seen - but in general, not knowing whether Stephane was dreaming or not - or whether, indeed, the entire film was actually a dream - heightened the fantastic aspect of the film, and made the story more enticing.
Bernal put on an expectedly strong performance, and Gainsbourg gave us nothing to frown about - their chemistry and, at times, lack of chemistry made the bizarre non-relationship between them perhaps the most real aspect of the film - and some scenes, like the scene where she finds the note, and the scene where they're 'married' on Stephane TV, are truly magical. But what truly stole the show was the stop-motion animation - especially the toilet paper roll city - and the very clever 'machines' like the 1-second time travel machine, which were magical to watch and compounded the dream sequences in an NFB meets Keith Haring kind of way.
Bernal's character, however, was immature to the point of being mean - which weighed down whatever sympathy one might have had for him. At some points his selfishness, and his cruel insults, started to grate on me. It didn't hurt the story so much, but it made me roll my eyes more than the film's surrealism ever did.
All in all, even with the moments of confusion and the character flaws of Stephane, the film was magical in all the right places. Fans of Eternal Sunshine will definitely approve and applaud. 8.5/10.