I went to see The Golden Compass on Thursday night. I really enjoyed it - I hope they go ahead and make the sequels. Nicole Kidman was exactly how I imagined Marisa Coulter to be and they did an amazing make-up job on Sir Ian McKellen who played Iorek Byrnison the armoured bear.

Yesterday, I went to see ‘The Science of Sleep’, the new Michel Gondry film. The film is about Stéphane (Gael García Bernal), coming back to Paris from Mexico after the death of his father, and his relationship with the girl-of-his-dreams next door, Stéphanie (Charlotte Gainsbourg). Troubled by work, life and love, Stéphane retreats to his dreams.

Gondry’s previous film, ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’ was, although quirky, still quite Hollywood, but this is much more European. Not least because of the dialogue which flits between English, French and Spanish - sometimes within the same sentence. What really appealed to me was the honesty of this dialogue - sometimes awkward and with an adlibbed quality - which is really what it is like when you meet someone you like and you don’t no quite what to say. Smitten, you can forget that you hardly know that person and, eager for intimacy, be too forward - your head trying to match the feelings in your heart. In the film the inappropriateness of some of Stéphane’s behaviour are mirrored by the crude, outspokeness of Stéphane’s co-worker, Guy.

As with a lot of Gondry’s work, it’s visually very engaging. Here the special effects are very low-key, the props hand-made from cardboard, and this only adds to the appeal. The dream sequences are playful and funny, sense jostling with nonsense, it’s all utterly charming.

As the film progresses, it becomes increasingly difficult to separate Stéphane’s dreams from reality and the plot is open to interpretation. Perhaps the film is just about dreams but, for me, the film is about falling in love and about how love distorts reality. The heightened dream-like state where life feels more real.