Written and directed by Michel Gondry
by Laura Hawbaker
Cars crash down from the sky in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Animatronic stuffed horses trot through clouds in The Science of Sleep. Björk is eaten by a teddy bear in “Human Behavior.” The general consensus of Michel Gondry’s work is the same across the board: we adore his cinematic panache, his eclectic creative punch, his postmodern flights of the imagination.
We detest his writing.
It’s why Eternal Sunshine is so good (Charlie Kaufman helmed the script) and The Science of Sleep so bad (Gondry wrote it).Nevertheless, Gondry’s latest film, Be Kind Rewind, is an endearing circus. Like his previous directorial work, it is a charming, child-like piece of whimsy; a feast of camera tricks and visual punch lines. Like his previous screenplays, it is structural mish-mosh too caught up in its own universe of oddity to anchor the audience in a gripping story.What story there is can be amusing, and the promise of comedy dangles like a cookie jar just out of reach.
Set in the gritty urban community of Passaic, NJ, Mike (Mos Def) attempts to keep his boss, Mr. Fletcher’s (Danny Glover) sinking video store afloat. The store, Fat’s Video, is a character in the film itself. A Blast From the Past movie poster hangs from the wall behind the cashier. The employee uniforms are mismatched blue shirts with masking tape name tags. With its “1 Video, 1 Day, 1 Dollar Every Day” slogan, Fat’s is a neighborhood staple, but the building that harbors it is condemned and scheduled to be bulldozed for a block of new condominiums.Enter Mike’s paranoid whack-job of a friend, Jerry (Jack Black), the sort who lives in the scrap yard across the street and thinks government moguls are reading his mind.
While attempting to sabotage the local power plant, Jerry’s brain becomes magnetized (in Gondry’s world, such things are plausible) and he accidentally erases all of the tapes in the video store. With the help of a nearby dry cleaner clerk, Alma (Melonie Diaz), they recreate the erased tapes in true guerilla filmmaking style: no script, no professionals, no budget, and wrapped in three hours. The trio’s twenty-minute amateur recreations of Hollywood blockbusters become a neighborhood hit, and soon they’re cranking the videos out to a booming clientele.
The amateur videos are the jewels of Be Kind Rewind. Gondry recreates some of Hollywood’s most memorable scenes—the Stay Puff marshmallow man’s ransacking of New York, the pig’s blood from Carrie, the upside-down car from Men in Black—using simple, home-spun effects. A fan in front of the camera generates the gritty feel of fifty-year old celluloid. Intertwined black fingers and white fingers become the keys of a cardboard piano. It’s clever, inspiring stuff that celebrates the innovativeness of recreational filmmakers and the transformative power of art.
However, this is not a perfect film. Despite the appeal of Gondry’s vision, there is too much wistfulness and not enough substance here. Jerry, Mike, Alma, and Mr. Fletcher are likeable and Mos Def is especially charismatic, but they’re reduced to space fillers while we wait for the next amateur video to grace the screen.Plot points appear like lighting bugs on a dark night, and then flicker out without a hint as to where they went. What happened to Jerry’s obsessive paranoia? Do the big Hollywood studios follow through with their threat to bring Mr. Fletcher to court, or do they steamroll his copyright-infringing merchandise and call it a day?
There are so many missed opportunities here. Be Kind Rewind stands at the cusp of greatness. Gondry could have dissected the corporate hackery of modern cinema. He could have highlighted the appeal of old technology while applauding the boom of the You Tube generation. He could have delved deeper. Instead, he creates a shallow waltz through nostalgia. Be Kind Rewind is delightfully silly and inventive, but it’s still just fluff.
