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Bookmark this pageBe Kind Rewind (2008)
Director: Michel Gondry
Movie review
From Time Out London
French celluloid sorcerer Michel Gondry delivers his most playful, accessible and subtextually sparkling slice of bespoke whimsy to date in the follow-up to his stifling 2005 quirk mire, ‘The Science of Sleep’.
This time, he accompanies us on the Capra-esque journey of highly-strung VHS rental shop clerk, Mike (Mos Def) and his skittish, mildly unhinged mechanic buddy Jerry (Jack Black) as they are forced – via myriad helter-skelter plot machinations – to locate the journeyman director deep inside them and remake all the films in the store when they are inadvertently erased. In doing so, they manage to convert the present-day dead-end town of Passaic, New Jersey into a teeming, ramshackle film lot where customised (or ‘Sweded’) versions of ’80s popcorn classics such as ‘Ghostbusters’ and ‘Driving Miss Daisy’ are rolled out at a dizzying rate and perform a roaring trade.
On paper, it sounds eccentric, but this is all part of Gondry’s vision. He presents us with a film whose simple structure could have tripped from the tongue of any vacuous pony-tailed studio exec (a community coming together to save a dilapidated video shop? It could only have come from the ’80s!).But Gondry uses this premise to flip open the ribcage of cinema and allow us to peruse its blood, bones and sinew, and really see how they flow, fit and flex into a glorious whole.
The magnitude of Gondry’s visual ingenuity is consistently jaw-dropping: with the aid of some washing machine innards and a white jump suit, he manages to reduce the iconic rotating space station scene from ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ to a kind of cinematic primordial ooze, at once presenting the infinite potential of the camera to create, subvert and renew reality while also screaming, ‘Yes, you can do this too!’
Because this is a film in thrall to the fact that we have camera phones, YouTube and iMovie at our fingertips, and that there are people who go out there and make movies – just for the hell of it. But the joyful process of filmmaking is not its sole concern: there’s also a fondness for archaic technology (you could even read it as a clarion call to a generation weened on in-built obsolescence) to the point that CGI is rejected in favour of in-camera effects which lend the film a ragged visual energy comparable to the ’80s classics to which it pays homage.
In the end, though, it’s this total respect for its ironic source material which has enabled Gondry to achieve his greatest coup. In a postmodern rendering of the archetypal ’80s schmaltz finale, the director picks at our heartstrings like a cigar-box banjo, assembling the entire town together to watch Mike and Jerry’s fictitious biopic of local jazz legend Fats Waller in what must be one of the most nakedly romantic salutes to the restorative power of cinema since the ‘montage of kisses’ scene from ‘Cinema Paradiso’. It’s an awesomely simple and powerful moment, echoed by an earlier declamation from Mia Farrow’s doddery Mrs Falewicz as she enjoys one of Mike and Jerry’s remakes: ‘A toast to movies with heart and soul!’ Hear hear!
Author: David Jenkins
Time Out London Issue 1957: Feb 20 to 26
User reviews of this film
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- Maggie said...
- Posted on Mar 25 2008 16:08 If you're wanting to see this film but are at all put off by the reviews here, I would advise to use your own judgement. I was put off, but went anyway, and it's a brilliant film.
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- chinners said...
- Posted on Mar 24 2008 18:23 bad!
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- jiron said...
- Posted on Mar 24 2008 17:53 worst movie EVER
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- Rach said...
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Posted on Mar 23 2008 13:15
Some funny moments but the storyline was a bit strange.
Jack Black was brilliant in this. - Report as inappropriate
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- o d on said...
- Posted on Mar 20 2008 19:27 clearly jack black has life in him yet this is a classic laugh a second whirlwind of a comedy and thos who find it unfunny are devoid of any sense of humour or 50+ without hearing or sight A MUST see for those jack blac fanatics i loved it keep it up!
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- lauren said...
- Posted on Mar 19 2008 19:05 This film was actually the worst film in the whole world. i am finding it hard to express my distaste without inappropriate language. die before seeing this!
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- georgia said...
- Posted on Mar 19 2008 07:53 how cum no one likes this film ???????????
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- pants said...
- Posted on Mar 18 2008 20:49 This was the worst film I have EVER seen. Absolute rubbish. Reading the telephone directory would be more interesting.
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- Michael Ward said...
- Posted on Mar 18 2008 17:33 OOOPS! When I said won't 2 see it I mean want 2 see it
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- Michael Ward said...
- Posted on Mar 18 2008 17:31 All of u that won't 2 see but r being put off by bad reviews IGNORE the bad reviews as the people that wrote them hav NO sense of humour
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- T said...
- Posted on Mar 18 2008 17:18 i thought it was fantastic . jack black is one of a kind. he can do anything . he made it sooo FUNNY . and to all you people who said you hated it . well .. to be honest . NO SENSE OF HUMOUR. you musnt laugh at much .
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- Michael Ward said...
- Posted on Mar 18 2008 10:57 All of you that didn't like it have a rubbish sense of humor
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- batwoman said...
- Posted on Mar 17 2008 20:53 this film is the worst film ive eva seen. i spent more time making out wit my boyfriend than watching the film. go and see BATMAN
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- Nic said...
- Posted on Mar 17 2008 18:10 Went to see it with a bunch of friends, who all - without exception - hated it! I thought it was OK, not overly funny (but I did laugh a couple of times). The others absolutely hated it and wished they'd left half way through. If you are looking for Jack Black a la "Holiday" or "Shallow Hal", you'll be disappointed.
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- michael ward said...
- Posted on Mar 17 2008 13:15 I liked it as much as Rambo now thats saying something
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Cast & crew
Director: Michel Gondry
Cast: Jack Black, Mos Def, Mia Farrow, Danny Glover full cast
Genre(s): Comedy
Duration: 100 mins
UK Release: Feb 22 2008
US Release: Feb 22 2008
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