Michel Gondry is a new director, but it seems like he's become a spent firework as of late, unfairly forgotten due to one bad blockbuster starring Seth Rogen and 118 minutes of boredom. He's been directing music videos for years, but Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind- the movie that put him on the map- was released as recently as 2004. In the past ten years, Gondry has been churning out movies characterized by his surreal style and daydream-like landscapes, proving that the criticism of films looking like music videos is no longer an insult. And hey, even if he's a spent firework nowadays, at least he's been a firework.
I could write infinitely about my love for Gondry's first big film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (and I have discussed some aspect of it here before), but I will try to restrain myself this time to focus just on the biggest factors as to what makes it a good film. For starters, the screenplay was written by personal and cult favorite Charlie Kaufman, who collaborated with Gondry once before on a little-known film called Human Nature. The story revolves around Joel (Jim Carrey, in a rare but appreciated serious role), a single man stuck in the repetitive routine of everyday life until spontaneous and green-haired Clementine (Kate Winslet). Their relationship escalates and ends, taking a shocking and weird turn when he learns that she had him erased from her memory. Determined to not be the fool in their relationship, Joel contacts the man performing this advanced process, Dr. Howard Mierzwaik (Tom Wilkinson) and convinces him to eraser her form his memory as well. But as each memory disappears from his mind, Joel find himself wanting more and more to hold on to them as he falls in love with Clementine all over again. Eternal Sunshine is more than a romance movie, more than a break-up movie, and more that a surrealistic pillow movie, and more than a Hitchockian man-on-the run movie, though it is a combination of all four. If we were to look at it in the simplest of terms, Eternal Sunshine is a break-up movie, but neither Kaufman or Gondry were interested in the actual ending of Clementine and Joel's relationship, they were more interested in the value of their shared memories, and how different a person would be without their regrets. Are we any more than the sum of our memories? Is ignorance indeed bliss or is it harmful to those deemed lucky enough to have forgotten? The answer provided by Eternal Sunshine is that all of our memories, both good and bad, have shaped who we are and by removing those we would like to forget, we may be removing an integral part of ourselves.
But what's great about Eternal Sunshine in regards to Michel Gondry is that it is the film that helped him establish his style and become a presence in the film world. I'll get into the Gondry overdose later with Mood Indigo and Be Kind Rewind, but in this film, imagination is applied gently and appropriately, used for the sake of plot rather than weird for weird's sake. The faceless doctors, cyclical city blocks, disintegrating cars, and indoor rain all make sense in context, and this visual beauty combined with the brilliance of the screenplay creates the solid foundation the film is built on. There's a lot of things going on visually here as Joel's memories fall away, but Gondry relies more on practical effects rather than CGI to make it all work. Virtually all of the film's effects are done in camera. There are forced perspectives to make Carrey look like a child compared to Winslet, hidden spaces, spotlighting, unsynchronized sound, and other editing tricks used throughout the film to add a dreamlike or nightmarish feeling to Joel's memories, creating the setting required for a concept as complex as this to work. Gondry is truly a magician when it comes to setting the stage.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a movie about love and loss, but it still manages to make silver linings glitter.
"Are you out of your mind?" is the question in The Science of Sleep, and though Stephanie asks it of Stéphane, it could just as easily be asked of Michel Gondry. I adore this film in all of its romantic quirkiness, and I adore that it proves Michel Gondry can utilize the tricks learned when making fashionably flashy music videos to make movies filled with real human emotion. Stéphane (Gael García Bernal) is an affable young man who returns to a Parisian apartment after the death of his father in search of love and a job. It doesn't take him long to find a job, landing a position at a less-than-traditional graphic design firm that appreciates his penchant for the morbid, but Stéphane's search for love proves more difficult, especially when his neighbor Stephanie (Charlotte Gainsbourg) becomes the object of his affection. Through a series of visual tricks including stop motion and surrealistic set designs, Stéphane's dreamscapes begin to blend seamlessly into the real world, shedding an imaginative light on a man's most vulnerable time and the consequences (both good and bad) of being in the twilight of one's immature years. The Science of Sleep's sense of humor and lack of meaning may make you smile, or it might give you a headache. It may do both. But Gondry has never been more of himself onscreen and there's no denying that his presence is charmingly powerful.
Be Kind Rewind is one of the most underrated cult movies of the past few years, and it should be required viewing for any movie buff who doesn't take themselves too seriously because (spoilers), neither does the film. The premise is absurd in itself- two movie lovers, Mike (Mos Def), a video store worker, and his friend Jerry (Jack Black), an inept junkyard worker, create very low-tech, highly imaginative versions of iconic films. It's Jerry's fault, after attacking a power plant he becomes magnetized and erases all of the movies in the store where Mike works, and when the store's most loyal customer (Mia Farrow, funnily enough) comes in to rent a movie, the two panic and see their only option is to make their own version of the films she's requesting. The whole movie is a little cheesy, but in a good way, almost like the senior prom of movies. As much fun as this movie is though, it can't be considered a great film. Not that I have a problem with that, some movies are just meant for a good time, but Be Kind supports the school of thought that states Michel Gondry is more a visual stylist than a writer. It's true that his best work was made when collaborating with screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, and perhaps his own screenplays are a little disjointed, but in this case, it's adorably so. And Be Kind is not a movie lacking in the director's personal opinion, either. While it pays homage to some of the most popular films of our time, it's also paying homage to the idea of all film being a communal enterprise, a point driven home by the democratization of filmmaking in the age of the internet.
Mood Indigo is Gondry's latest film, and despite its entropy, its first hour is one of the loveliest you'll see all year. Unfortunately, ever since the Green Hornet fiasco, Gondry's films have come and gone in all their glory, and for the most part unnoticed by the public. Mood Indigo is at risk of suffering the same fate. Mood Indigo is the story of Colin (Romain Duris) and Chloe (Audrey Tatou), the odd couple in typical Gondry fashion. The two lovers meet at a party. They dance, fall in love awkwardly, get married, and soon after are faced with the oddest of crises when Chloe is diagnosed with a water lily growing in her right lung. For the most part it sounds ordinary, but there's ingenuity and creative mise-en-scene flowing out of each frame to create a film that is anything but. For a taste, the opening sequence features Colin starting his day. The the rooms in his house are vibrant and alive (sometimes literally, with eels coming out of faucets and a tiny humanoid mouse living in his kitchen drawer), and our hero even possesses a strangely charming “pianocktail,” where each key brings forth a different liqueur. Unfortunately, after the first hour of fun, kisses, and giggles, the second half is manic and a little tortured. The stop-motion bits that were playful near the start of the film become odd in the end, each sequence more frenzied than the last, even as the overall tone grows darker. Gondry is known for his eclectic filmmaking, but in this case I wish he had settled down a little to ground the third act of the film. It's all good fun, but ultimately exhausting.
The consensus on Gondry seems to be that his collaged, oddball style is what defines him, but it can also be his downfall. His most recent films lack the grounded nature that made his earlier ones great, drifting closer and closer to a total dream state with no sense of reality. Maybe he needs Charlie Kaufman's character development to ground him again, maybe his evolution will shift out of the in-between and into either extreme. For now, his balance is just a little wrong, but his films are still as charismatic as ever.
I could write infinitely about my love for Gondry's first big film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (and I have discussed some aspect of it here before), but I will try to restrain myself this time to focus just on the biggest factors as to what makes it a good film. For starters, the screenplay was written by personal and cult favorite Charlie Kaufman, who collaborated with Gondry once before on a little-known film called Human Nature. The story revolves around Joel (Jim Carrey, in a rare but appreciated serious role), a single man stuck in the repetitive routine of everyday life until spontaneous and green-haired Clementine (Kate Winslet). Their relationship escalates and ends, taking a shocking and weird turn when he learns that she had him erased from her memory. Determined to not be the fool in their relationship, Joel contacts the man performing this advanced process, Dr. Howard Mierzwaik (Tom Wilkinson) and convinces him to eraser her form his memory as well. But as each memory disappears from his mind, Joel find himself wanting more and more to hold on to them as he falls in love with Clementine all over again. Eternal Sunshine is more than a romance movie, more than a break-up movie, and more that a surrealistic pillow movie, and more than a Hitchockian man-on-the run movie, though it is a combination of all four. If we were to look at it in the simplest of terms, Eternal Sunshine is a break-up movie, but neither Kaufman or Gondry were interested in the actual ending of Clementine and Joel's relationship, they were more interested in the value of their shared memories, and how different a person would be without their regrets. Are we any more than the sum of our memories? Is ignorance indeed bliss or is it harmful to those deemed lucky enough to have forgotten? The answer provided by Eternal Sunshine is that all of our memories, both good and bad, have shaped who we are and by removing those we would like to forget, we may be removing an integral part of ourselves.
But what's great about Eternal Sunshine in regards to Michel Gondry is that it is the film that helped him establish his style and become a presence in the film world. I'll get into the Gondry overdose later with Mood Indigo and Be Kind Rewind, but in this film, imagination is applied gently and appropriately, used for the sake of plot rather than weird for weird's sake. The faceless doctors, cyclical city blocks, disintegrating cars, and indoor rain all make sense in context, and this visual beauty combined with the brilliance of the screenplay creates the solid foundation the film is built on. There's a lot of things going on visually here as Joel's memories fall away, but Gondry relies more on practical effects rather than CGI to make it all work. Virtually all of the film's effects are done in camera. There are forced perspectives to make Carrey look like a child compared to Winslet, hidden spaces, spotlighting, unsynchronized sound, and other editing tricks used throughout the film to add a dreamlike or nightmarish feeling to Joel's memories, creating the setting required for a concept as complex as this to work. Gondry is truly a magician when it comes to setting the stage.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a movie about love and loss, but it still manages to make silver linings glitter.
"Are you out of your mind?" is the question in The Science of Sleep, and though Stephanie asks it of Stéphane, it could just as easily be asked of Michel Gondry. I adore this film in all of its romantic quirkiness, and I adore that it proves Michel Gondry can utilize the tricks learned when making fashionably flashy music videos to make movies filled with real human emotion. Stéphane (Gael García Bernal) is an affable young man who returns to a Parisian apartment after the death of his father in search of love and a job. It doesn't take him long to find a job, landing a position at a less-than-traditional graphic design firm that appreciates his penchant for the morbid, but Stéphane's search for love proves more difficult, especially when his neighbor Stephanie (Charlotte Gainsbourg) becomes the object of his affection. Through a series of visual tricks including stop motion and surrealistic set designs, Stéphane's dreamscapes begin to blend seamlessly into the real world, shedding an imaginative light on a man's most vulnerable time and the consequences (both good and bad) of being in the twilight of one's immature years. The Science of Sleep's sense of humor and lack of meaning may make you smile, or it might give you a headache. It may do both. But Gondry has never been more of himself onscreen and there's no denying that his presence is charmingly powerful.
Be Kind Rewind is one of the most underrated cult movies of the past few years, and it should be required viewing for any movie buff who doesn't take themselves too seriously because (spoilers), neither does the film. The premise is absurd in itself- two movie lovers, Mike (Mos Def), a video store worker, and his friend Jerry (Jack Black), an inept junkyard worker, create very low-tech, highly imaginative versions of iconic films. It's Jerry's fault, after attacking a power plant he becomes magnetized and erases all of the movies in the store where Mike works, and when the store's most loyal customer (Mia Farrow, funnily enough) comes in to rent a movie, the two panic and see their only option is to make their own version of the films she's requesting. The whole movie is a little cheesy, but in a good way, almost like the senior prom of movies. As much fun as this movie is though, it can't be considered a great film. Not that I have a problem with that, some movies are just meant for a good time, but Be Kind supports the school of thought that states Michel Gondry is more a visual stylist than a writer. It's true that his best work was made when collaborating with screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, and perhaps his own screenplays are a little disjointed, but in this case, it's adorably so. And Be Kind is not a movie lacking in the director's personal opinion, either. While it pays homage to some of the most popular films of our time, it's also paying homage to the idea of all film being a communal enterprise, a point driven home by the democratization of filmmaking in the age of the internet.
Mood Indigo is Gondry's latest film, and despite its entropy, its first hour is one of the loveliest you'll see all year. Unfortunately, ever since the Green Hornet fiasco, Gondry's films have come and gone in all their glory, and for the most part unnoticed by the public. Mood Indigo is at risk of suffering the same fate. Mood Indigo is the story of Colin (Romain Duris) and Chloe (Audrey Tatou), the odd couple in typical Gondry fashion. The two lovers meet at a party. They dance, fall in love awkwardly, get married, and soon after are faced with the oddest of crises when Chloe is diagnosed with a water lily growing in her right lung. For the most part it sounds ordinary, but there's ingenuity and creative mise-en-scene flowing out of each frame to create a film that is anything but. For a taste, the opening sequence features Colin starting his day. The the rooms in his house are vibrant and alive (sometimes literally, with eels coming out of faucets and a tiny humanoid mouse living in his kitchen drawer), and our hero even possesses a strangely charming “pianocktail,” where each key brings forth a different liqueur. Unfortunately, after the first hour of fun, kisses, and giggles, the second half is manic and a little tortured. The stop-motion bits that were playful near the start of the film become odd in the end, each sequence more frenzied than the last, even as the overall tone grows darker. Gondry is known for his eclectic filmmaking, but in this case I wish he had settled down a little to ground the third act of the film. It's all good fun, but ultimately exhausting.
The consensus on Gondry seems to be that his collaged, oddball style is what defines him, but it can also be his downfall. His most recent films lack the grounded nature that made his earlier ones great, drifting closer and closer to a total dream state with no sense of reality. Maybe he needs Charlie Kaufman's character development to ground him again, maybe his evolution will shift out of the in-between and into either extreme. For now, his balance is just a little wrong, but his films are still as charismatic as ever.
As Gondry as It Gets- Three Scenes That Define Michel Gondry as a Director
Michel Gondry's wild style runs free in The Science of Sleep as he depicts a dream sequence in Stephane's mind, combing stop motion, CGI, and practical effects. The disjointed and wacky nature of the scene fits well with the subject matter, and the whole thing feels adorably hand-crafted.
Though Gondry is often known for his playfulness, this scene from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is painfully poignant. The restrained visuals during the intimate, emotional part beneath the blankets paired with the frenzied effects as Joel loses control proves that Gondry knows how to manipulate both cameras and the emotions of his audience.
This scene from Be Kind Rewind is just good fun. It's Mike and Jerry's version of the popular comedy Rush Hour 2, and their low budget alternatives to some high budget effects are hilarious. It's something that definitely instills a sense of appreciation for all of those filmmakers out there making the best of their resources.