Be Kind, Rewind

22/02/2008

Posted by Andrea Hubert

With Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and last year's The Science of Sleep, one could have accused maverick visionary Michel Gondry of creating weirdness in a vacuum – characters in love with each other within a surreal world, with nobody ultimately able to penetrate their bubble.

His latest film, Be Kind Rewind, never loses the magical touch that made him one of the most sought after music video directors in the business (remember all those bizarre but brilliant Björk videos? Now imagine if the two of them had babies…), but it has a heart and soul that's as near to Hollywood schmaltz as Gondry will allow himself to get – and that's no bad thing.

Jerry (Jack Black, playing Jack Black) and Mike (Mos Def, who acts with a sweet, if slightly autistic naturalism) star as clerks in an old fashioned video store in Passaic, New Jersey, owned by Danny Glover and housed in a condemned building. When a stunt to destroy the power plant he believes is melting his brain leaves him with all-over magnetisation, Jerry accidentally wipes clean all the videos in the store. So it's up to Mike and Jerry to remake every single one of them, getting help from an entire community eager for more homemade films.

Those with Jack Black fatigue should breathe a sigh of relief – perhaps in reverence to Gondry's infinite creativity, he manages to take it down a couple of notches, thus helping Be Kind avoid the tag "Jack Black's latest film". And this film is all about Gondry's vision – the remakes of everything from Ghostbusters to Back to the Future, Driving Miss Daisy (with Black as an unlikely Jessica Tandy), Boogie Nights, Apollo 13, King Kong (with Black clambering up a rusty piece of corrugated iron) and even The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. The movie-making montage plays out like one long Björk video watched whilst on mushrooms – and just imagine the storyboarding.

In Be Kind..., Gondry has wholeheartedly embraced the concept of community, and this provides those moments in between the conceptual and the comedic where the traditionalists amongst you can find pure enjoyment. There's nothing more heartening than watching a community come together against corporate America. Especially if it involves the recreation of the life of forties jazz legend Fats Waller filmed using plastic bands, cardboard cut-out cars and a condemned house with no fourth wall.

Gondry takes the idea of creating entertainment for its own sake, and translates it into a public service. Last week, Youtube announced that Gondry will be guest editing the website for the Sundance Film Festival. Now there's one public service top ten list I'll be looking out for.

View Jack Black's spoof of 'The Queen' here.

Be Kind, Rewind is in cinemas this week.