Any hip flick worth its celluloid had better gild its L.A. rock with a spot of chanson. Here the French croon is all the more fitting, as Michel Gondry's picture stars Serge Gainsbourg's daughter. It all adds up to a score that puts a keen edge on shapely surrealism, no small feat of geometry.

The Science Of Sleep was written and directed by Michel Gondry, the boundlessly inventive creator of films (Human Nature, Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind) and award-winning music videos (Bjork, Chemical Brothers, Daft Punk, The White Stripes). Featuring Mexico's rising star Gael Garcia Bernal and Charlotte Gainsbourg (daughter of Serge), the movie is a playfully surreal romantic fantasy set inside the topsy-turvy brain of the lead character Stephane Miroux, an eccentric young man whose dreams constantly invade his waking life. Throughout the film, the lines between reality and fantasy are constantly blurred and shot through with edgy humor and a mesmerizing mix of animation and real life action.

The music is an equally surreal and engaging mix of orchestration, spoken word narrative and spiky rockn roll episodes (the director himself even provides the occasional drum track). Longtime Gondry collaborator Jean-Michel Bernard's hauntingly dreamlike original score provides the backbone of the music, while other highlights include the Lou Reed cover version If You Rescue Me sung by the key members of the cast, Kool and the Gang Steppin Out and two tracks from LA rockers The Willowz (their song Ulcer Soul is in the audio player).