The story of the biggest dreamer in contemporary cinema; from music videos for Björk, The White Stripes, and Daft Punk to Hollywood and an Oscar
Psychologists often talk about the importance of listening to your inner child, and no contemporary filmmaker is better at that than French director Michel Gondry. At the heart of everything he does is a child’s delight in magic tricks and fantastical plot twists. What if a girl was swallowed by a bear in a magical forest? What if people were made of Lego? What if you translated a melody into a dance, in which drum machines were mummies and guitars were skeletons? Gondry’s fans will recognize in these descriptions the famous videos he made for Björk, The White Stripes, and Daft Punk. He rose to fame as the most inventive music video maker of the late 1990s and early 2000s before successfully switching to film and winning an Oscar for best screenplay with his second feature film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
His longtime friend and assistant François Nemeta decided it’s time to look back and trace Gondry’s path from his first felt-tip-pen-drawn videos for the French band Oui Oui, where he played drums, to his Hollywood career. Despite the participation of many stars who worked with Gondry—Beck and Kylie Minogue, Charlotte Rampling and Spike Jonze—the film turned out to be just like its protagonist, rough, charming, and without unnecessary drama, which seems incompatible with Gondry and his ruffled-sparrow looks. Gondry talks about his love of Soviet cartoons, visits the French school named after him, and reveals where children with a crazy imagination come from. One of the most interesting parts of the documentary has to do with Gondry’s extraordinary family: his inventor grandfather, hippie mom, and the brothers who have helped Gondry with his projects.
The film will be screened in French with Russian subtitles.
Michel Gondry: Do It Yourself!;
Director: François Nemeta
France, 2023. 80 min. 18+
