The Science of Sleep

The Science of Sleep is a mildly surreal film, which is perfectly suited to the storyline. Stéphane Miroux moves back into his childhood home after his father passes away.  One day on his way to work he finds himself helping a neighbour move a piano into their apartment and injures his hand in the process. The neighbour, Stéphanie invites him in and her friend, Zoé dresses his hand. He is initially attracted to Zoé but soon turns his attention to Stéphanie. He hides the fact that he is actually a neighbour due to awkwardly hearing his new neighbour make disparaging remarks about their landlady who also happens to be his mother. Stéphanie though is made aware early on that he is actually is her neighbour, long before he discoverers that she knows. He has a hard time separating his dreams and reality and this plays through out the film eventually also leaving the viewer confused as to what is a dream and what is reality too, so we really get an insight to his confusing and frustrating world. It becomes very clear how much of a problem this is and how much it's impacting his life, which already appears to be socially difficult. He suffers a bout of sleep walking where he writes an embarrassing and somewhat confusing note to Stéphanie and slips it under her door. He wakes up and realises what he has done and retrieves it with a coat hanger unaware that she has already read it. As the film goes on the dreams and reality become more entwined and the relationship between Stéphane and Stéphanie becomes more strained.
The movie incorporates stop-motion animation and other interesting visual techniques both in the dream sequences and also in the more mundane reality.

The film is unusual but also very interesting. Recommended.