Michel Gondry, Do It Yourself

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The career of filmmaker Michel Gondry is looked back upon in Michel Gondry, Do It Yourself. Beginning as the drummer for the band Oui Oui, Michel Gondry became an influential music video director for artists such as Björk, Daft Punk, the White Stripes and the Chemical Brothers. Moving into feature films in the mid-2000s, Michel Gondry made his mark with films such as Human Nature, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Be Kind Rewind, and The Green Hornet, all while sharing a friendly rivalry with fellow music video-turned-feature filmmaker Spike Jonze.

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Michel Gondry, Do It Yourself Synopsis

Michel Gondry, Do It Yourself is a documentary about the French filmmaker’s career directed by François Nemeta, who has spent the last 25 years working as an assistant for Michel Gondry. The film details how Michel Gondry was influenced by the silent films of Georges Méliès and became a pioneer in using stop motion in music videos and even invented bullet time for a commercial before the Wachowski’s used it for The Matrix. Michel Gondry’s career in North America reached its peak when he co-won the Best Original Screenplay Oscar for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind with Charlie Kaufman.

My Thoughts on Michel Gondry, Do It Yourself

As Michel Gondry, Do It Yourself is directed by someone quite close to Michel Gondry for nearly three decades, this documentary comes off as quite surface-level. Other than talking heads describing Gondry’s filmography as chaotic, the film gives no real criticism of the filmmaker, whose North American relevance peaked two decades ago. While Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind remains one of my all-time favourite films, I sadly have to shrug off this documentary as little more than a fluff piece.

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