by Aleks Wansbrough
Worth: $16.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Michel Gondry, Bjork, Jack Black, Kylie Minogue, Kate Winslet, Spike Jonze
Intro:
... moves at a quick pace and does not attempt to dwell too much on any one episode of Gondry’s life, offering us glimpses of his family and work.
The documentary opens with director François Nemeta describing a pivotal influence on his own career, the band Oui Oui’s quirky, stopmotion music clips. Nemeta filmed a gig by the band in hopes that he may make music videos for them. It was not to be, since the filmmaker behind these sequences was none other than the band’s own drummer, Michel Gondry. “That meeting,” Nemata tells us, “ would change my life and lead me to work with pop stars and movie stars.” Curiously, Nemata does reveal much on his own experiences of Gondry, with the documentary’s focus sharply redirected toward Gondry’s career. Even though he became a filmmaker in his own right, Nemeta guesses, wisely, that our interest is in the documentary’s subject with his anecdotes serving to express, indeed, share, his enthusiasm for the whimsical auteur.
While we witness a host of celebrities describe Gondry, including the likes of Beck, Kate Winslet and Kylie Minogue, the actual works by Gondry steal the show. Revisiting the classics, such as the surreal art films masquerading as Björk music videos, his tightly choreographed Daft Punk music video “Around the World”, and his punchy and iconic White Stripes videos, we are caught up in the wonder of Gondry’s distinctive vision and oddness. There’s a real emphasis on how Gondry achieved his special/practical effects, which Nemata links to a punk DIY sensibility. The visual inventiveness and do-it-yourself aesthetic also allow Nemata to frame Gondry as a successor to Georges Méliès (who Gondry cites as a cinematic influence).
Introduced through his friend and rival, Spike Jonze, to writer Charlie Kaufman, Gondry crafted the feature film Human Nature (2001), based on Kaufman’s script, before creating Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004). The documentary maps Gondry’s Hollywood trajectory, including The Green Hornet (2011). Many found The Green Hornet disappointing. Rather than affording an opportunity to indulge in childhood wonder, the superhero adaptation seemed to hamper the creative abilities of the director – this would not be the first time, if one recalls Ang Lee’s critically divisive Hulk (2003). However, the documentary persuasively reframes Green Hornet as a subversion of the genre as Jay Chou’s Kato, the sidekick, is the real hero in contrast to the clownish Seth Rogen.
Throughout the documentary, we also get a sense of Gondry, the man, as shy, sweet, and socially awkward. In one sequence, he talks about his collaboration with his brother, Olivier Gondry, saying that they are like twins, “If I start a sentence, he can finish it”. Meanwhile, Olivier Gondry replies, that he often “didn’t understand a word” Gondry was saying and emphasising a creative gulf between them. Nevertheless, Gondry is not without a cheeky sense of humour. Gondry describes making video clips for The White Stripes, saying, “I put my best idea if there is a boring part in the song. […] Then it’s fine because you don’t get bored”. Jack White was, at that point sitting right next to him, and didn’t seem sure how to respond. Gondry tapers his sentiment, “Sorry, the song is great”. Nor is Gondry above impish manipulation as demonstrated by his direction of Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet on Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind: “To balance the two, I spoke to them at different times. I’d take Jim aside and say: “This isn’t a comic scene, it’s deadly serious”. And I’d go to Kate and say: “This isn’t serious at all, so let yourself go. It’s a totally comic scene.”
The documentary moves at a quick pace and does not attempt to dwell too much on any one episode of Gondry’s life, offering us glimpses of his family and work. Indeed, the two are often entwined, as evidenced by Gondry’s recent series of stopmotion short films for his six-year-old daughter. This is Gondry returning to form, spending days making films, for, in his words, “one vieweress”. By capturing his process, Michel Gondry: Do It Yourself, offers a charming portrait of its aloof subject.
Michel Gondry: Do It Yourself is playing at Dendy, Newtown on Saturday, 14 September as part of the Sydney Underground Film Festival, which runs from the 12 – 15 September 2024. More information here.