[rating=3.50]
Be Kind Rewind tells the story of a guy who sabotoges a power plant, magnetizes himself and unknowingly demagnetizes all the VHS tapes in his friend’s video store while the boss is out. Sound weird? Then you don’t know Michel Gondry. He’s the French filmmaker that started out making music videos for the likes of Bjork and ended up with a viral video showing how he can solve a Rubik’s Cube with his feet in record time. Of all his achievements one talent among others is always apparent–he avoids CGI and computers like the plague. Following his break out successes with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Science of Sleep, Gondry shows us he is a visual master blending mind blowing effects and child-like wonder with nothing more than good ol’ fashion camera tricks and props created by anything he can get his hands on. It would seem out of place in an age obsessed with replacing actors with computer images but, ironically, it is Gondry’s DIY mentality that draws the crowds. It’s also this DIY mentality that drags this small sleeping town out of its slumber and into a bursting scene of creativity. In a sense, Be Kind Rewind gives the movie-goers insight into Gondry’s view of film making which is meant to entertain us as much as it is to involve us.
The story centers on two friends stuck in Passaic, New Jersey, a town forgotten by the rest of the world (possibly explaining the existence of a VHS only rental store in 2007). Mike (Mos Def) is the clerk of the Be Kind Rewind Video & Thrift store and Jerry (Jack Black--without whom the movie wouldn’t fly) lives in a trailer across the street and is convinced power lines are frying his brain. The owner, Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover), is under pressure to demolish the condemned building in order to construct new condos. Unwilling to give up, Mr. Fletcher goes on a week vacation to commemorate jazz-legend and alleged prior Be Kind building resident Fats Waller. He leaves Mike in charge with only one rule-Keep Jerry Out. Of course, this tells us Jerry will somehow find his way in and chaos will ensue. He becomes magnetized and unknowingly erases all the tapes in the store just as Miss Falewicz (Mia Farrow) happens by and wants to rent Ghostbusters. The two unable to find another VHS copy (no duh) decide to make their own version and hope the slighty senile woman won’t notice the difference between a cat and a ghost. What they don’t anticipate is that they will become local stars and their sweded movies will become wildly popular. From here the movie snow balls into a story about community and fighting the MPAA (the Man) with a great cameo by Sigourney Weaver as the person who will come to your house if you don’t heed that little FBI Warning shown before films. It may also resonate loudly for some in recent light of pirate battles over true ownership of content.
Ultimately, the film lacks the depth his two previous efforts involved, although the equally deranged Charlie Kaufman did write one of those. But depth is not what Gondry is attempting here. He attempts to give us a lesson in film making, which is ultimately a communal effort. We’re not as invested in the individual characters and their plight as we are with the overall outcome of the story and the affect it has on everyone within the community and the town itself. Movies are as much a part of our lives and history as they are Hollywood’s and to re-create them is to re-write our own history and to forge a better future. The lesson may be lost among the Jack Black freakouts and the Fats Waller music but in the end Gondry succeeds in telling the story of a small American town that left their TV recliners behind and attempted art for themselves.
