Quench
The science of sleep
When Stephane (Garcia Bernal) meets beautiful Stephanie (Gainsbourg) he is instantly entranced by her. He deals with his feelings by entering into a world of imagination fuelled by his dreams.
With a script that continually shifts between French, English and Spanish, and a central plot that centres on a man and has problems differentiating between his dreams and ‘real life’, surprisingly the film never once becomes as confusing as it could have been, or indeed as I expected it to.
Visually it’s more reminiscent of his early music videos than his Charlie Kaufman collaborations and this is due to the fact that this is truly his baby. Science is a production designer’s wet-dream; life-sized cars made from cardboard and a model cityscape crafted solely from toilet rolls are memorable moments.
However, to view this as simply an exercise in Gondry’s vivid experimental visuals would be grave injustice, as it unpredictably contains a warm script, as sweet and funny as you will see for a long time. Brought to life by a superb cast, impeccably led by the captivating Gael Garcia Bernal, it is at times painfully funny yet never strays far from it’s central story-arc of the strangest, sweetest romance imaginable.
Ashley James
This Week
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