Prototype Issue
Be Kind Rewind
By As reviewed by Jason Venzor
(page 1 of 1)Director Michel Gondry’s latest is a love letter. The wildly imaginative Frenchman has set his cupid bow sights on the dispossessed: social outcasts, jazz, mom and pop shops and video tape.
Gondry is returning to the sentimental ground he tread through in Dave Chapelle’s Block Party. In the urban neighborhoods of Gondry’s imagination even the menacing folks—both thugs and square urban developers alike—are swayed by the sweeter corners of their conscience. The ruins of our culture are reconstructed in the imaginations of their misfit inhabitants, and there is no challenge that cannot be overcome by their daydreams.
Jack Black and Mos Def are our two stumbling heroes working to save a rundown video shop from being condemned and grabbed up by gentrifiers. Black is the junkyard resident of the neighborhood that is whacked out on conspiracy theories. Def is the noble and naive clerk at Danny Glover’s outdated video shop. When left in charge of the shop, zaniness ensues that results in the erasing of the entire tape catalogue. What to do? Use an old camcorder to recreate the movies and inadvertently create a local sensation.
The details of the plot are secondary to the premise of watching Black and Def ham it up in their recreated Robocop and Rush Hour 2 productions. Beyond the ironic comic kitsch though is Gondry’s relentless pining for the time before the digital, Blockbuster age. Be Kind Rewind is his Crooklyn—an unbridled nostalgia piece. It looks like it was shot on the Good Times set. Were Esther Rolle still alive she’d have had a walk-on.
The end result is a sweet, if somewhat fuzzy picture. Freak power of the misfits coming together to form a community of soul rebels. Well, at least as much of a rebellion as can be had from the couch while watching new-old movies.
Gondry is notorious for his dream-worship. The theme has run through the body of his work from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind to The Science of Sleep. Be Kind Rewind does not feature sleeping people. It’s about dreamers who’ve awoken and are fighting to live in the world of their fantasy.
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