Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind remains Michel Gondry’s best and best known work — and rightfully so. Gondry’s playful, sleepy direction eases into Charlie Kaufman’s forlorn science-fiction in a way that softens the concepts behind one of Hollywood’s “trippiest” screenwriters. Four years later, Gondry would write and direct Be Kind Rewind which plays this week at the Union South Marquee. While not as emotionally resonant as his masterwork, Be Kind finds Gondry approaching his passion of cinema with the same surreal fluidity and in the process, creating a perfect late night feature.
Make no mistake, Gondry isn’t coy about his aims. Centered around a little-visited VHS store in Passaic, New Jersey, store clerk Mike (a jittery Mos Def) and his junkyard worker buddy Jerry (Jack Black) hastily recreate the store’s erased stockpile of videos after Jerry becomes magnetized in a freak accident. What begins as an attempt to stifle Mia Farrow’s aloof Miss Falewicz from ratting them out to store owner Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover) snowballs into a smalltown production company, as Mike and Jerry enlist the help of Melonie Diaz for all the female roles and, eventually, the town for everything else.
While Glover’s B-plot is undercooked, Mr. Fletcher proudly preaches Be Kind‘s lessons on revering the past. The title itself, a reference to the text slapped on the sides of rental store videotapes, even suggests the value in looking backward to the silent films and world cinema Mike bemoans as casualties in the homogenization of chain store giants. Physical media is clearly in its death throes, but Gondry finds a charm in faded cassette cases and “Sweded” versions of Ghostbusters and Rush Hour 2. When the town rallies to film a biopic of local jazz legend Fats Waller, Gondry treats the fundraiser screening with the same enthusiasm his characters afford Ray Parker, Jr., as if it were yet another late night favorite Passaic could recall from memory and repeat viewings alone. As his camera pans across the video store’s makeshift theater basked in a projector’s glow, Gondry cuts the audio and lets the audience’s delighted expressions say it all. You know, like the old stuff.
- Be Kind Rewind plays FREE this Thursday at 9:30p and Friday at 11:30p in the Union South Marquee.