By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: François Nemeta
Year: 2025
Running time: 80
Diane says: “Shame on me for not knowing the name Michel Gondry, particularly as the Oscar-winning director and co-writer of 2004’s ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND. This eponymous doc, assembled by Gondry’s friend and collaborator François Nemeta, presents a chronological lookback on the director’s career in animation, music videos (Bjork, White Stripes), and features. His innovative approach to image manipulation has had an outsized influence in film.
“Pretty much a hagiography, the doc offers us no critique of the artist’s oeuvre, and some of his films looked quite bad (e.g., 2011’s GREEN HORNET). But Gondry is an appealing fellow, and I made note of some films of his to check out later. 3 cats.”
Julie says: “Like Diana, I felt I should have known who this man was, as he’s worked on videos of some of my favorite artists including Bjork, White Stripes and Daft Punk and also on some notable films such as ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THES SPOTLESS MIND! How he was discovered and built up from there is proof that if you do what you love you can make it in this world and be happy about it.
“The movie is reminiscent of SOUNDTRACK TO A COUT D’ETAT in it’s collage of sound, visuals and text creating a movie where there’s too much to take in all at once. I was mesmerized by the music and artistic creative genius so sometimes found I’d missed what was said in the french subtitles! I wished I had my remote to pause and rewind here and there! 4 cats
“Seen at the Brattle 4/25/2025 as part of the IFF Boston”