Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here.
The latest film from visionary director Michel Gondry (ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND; THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP) is not, as the trailers would have you believe, a film about two video store clerks remaking classic movies... not exactly. Instead, it's about two men who discover they have a passion and certain knack for making their own films. With absolutely no budget and armed only with their own self-generated creativity, Jerry (Jack Black) and Mike (Mos Def) invent a style of filmmaking that not only doesn't require much knowledge of the process, it also doesn't even demand that you know the film you're remaking all that well. But in a far more interesting way, Gondry is interested in people creating their own reality when the one they live in doesn't suit them.
If you really extend that metaphor, you could look at this film as a comment on the world we're living in today, but I think Gondry is more interested in people making small adjustments in the truth of their world than the global picture.
Despite the presence of Jack Black sporting a pair of thick, oversized glasses, BE KIND REWIND is not simply a showcase for the comic actor to cut loose all of his standard-issue Jack Black-isms. Gondry infuses his film with a darker edge than you might expect. Jerry and Mike are childhood friends living in Passaic, New Jersey, and neither one have much money or anything resembling a life. Jerry lives in a small trailer near some scary-looking power lines that he's pretty sure are nuking his brain, while Mike works at a nearby video store owned by Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover) that only rents VHS tapes of movies (brilliantly limiting what films might be available for remaking).
Establishing early on that these two men aren't cinephiles, the film instead focuses on Fletcher's obsession with jazz musician Fats Waller, whom Fletcher says was born in the same building where his video store in now located. Getting pressured to sell his store in the interest of the neighborhood's rapid gentrification, Fletcher tells his two friends that he's going to take a memorial trip to locations key to Waller's life and death and is leaving Mike in charge.
Through means that are far too funny to reveal here, Jerry become magnetized shortly after Fletcher's departure and erases every film in the store. When a customer (Mia Farrow) who knows Fletcher comes in to rent a movie, the boys concoct a scheme to remake the film and rent it to her the next day. The process is deemed "Sweding" because (according to Mike and Jerry) the customized tapes are imports from Sweden. Makes sense. The films aren't so much remakes as they are reductions, each running about 20 minutes long, and I can't wait for the DVD of BE KIND REWIND to see if any complete Sweded films are included. GHOSTBUSTERS; ROBOCOP; 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY; DRIVING MISS DAISY; THE LION KING; RUSH HOUR 3; BOYZ N DA HOOD; and the original KING KONG are all films we get a taste of, and each one is glorious. There's a level of creativity shown by these characters that is admirable, especially in terms of how they handle the special effects and costuming.
The boys bring Alma (Melonie Diaz) on board to help with female roles and production design, and pretty soon there is a line around the block for Sweded movies, bring in more money to the store than it has ever seen. Even when the neighborhood realizes that these films are just Jerry and Mike productions, they still find them hopelessly entertaining. Good news for the fellas since that means they have bigger budgets and crews for their productions, but bad news when the Hollywood lawyers find out about their little operation.
The final act of BE KIND REWIND is perhaps even more interesting to would-be filmmakers than any of the Sweding material, as the neighborhood joins forces to make its first original film. Thankfully, this is not two hours of Jack Black cutting loose; it's better than that. Black shows subtlety in his performance that he's never really mustered before this film. Jerry actually begins to get an ego for the first time in his life as his career as an actor blossoms (he is the lead in all of the Sweded films), and the resulting fame changes him into a version of a spoiled Hollywood star.
Writer-director Gondry is paying tribute to the way he (a man in his mid-40s) grew up discovering movies: on degraded, sometimes full-frame videotape. He is reminding filmmakers that they have a unique opportunity to create realities that simply don't exist, all for the betterment and enjoyment of millions of people worldwide.
To him, having the opportunity to make a wonderfully entertaining film is a gift that should not be squandered. His version of Passaic is a dreary, sad place into which Mike and Jerry inject a great deal of almost childlike wonder and excitement. Hopefully this is the spark that pushes all great filmmakers to make movies. It reminded me of those kids who remade RAIDER OF THE LOST ARK so many years ago and created something almost more entertaining because they didn't have the resources at the disposal of Spielberg and Lucas. BE KIND REWIND does not turn out to be what you think it will; much like the Sweded films in the movie--it turns out better.
Capone
