Just as the jazz musicians emerging blinking into the spring sunlight hijacked my 'Spring' list last week, this list has inevitably been hijacked by the synth-toting boffins. I got to number eight and gave up on any pretence of trying to include anything guitar-based. It's beyond my control. One band even made it twice...Some nice synchronicity (Oh no one has had the balls to mention 'Ghost in the machine' - probably just as well on reflection) going on between Maddy's world and mine. Him indoors and I tucked each other up on the sofa last night with Michel Gondry's "The Science of Sleep". I adore Gondry. He's a French film maker who resorts to very old fashioned tricks (animation with real puppets, running the film backwards) to achieve the most incrediable special effects. "The Science of Sleep" is the story of a very creative young Mexican artist (G.G. Bernal) who finds himself stuck in the ultimate dead end job of assembling calenders with puppies and/or nude ladies. He takes refuge in increasingly bizarre dreams which are wonderfully surreal and make use of Gondry's fantastic visual imagination. His other films include 'The eternal sunshone of the spotless mind' and 'Be kind, rewind' both of which I thoroughly recommend (in the true spirit of this blog!). He has also done many music videos and adverts, all of which display unique visual creativity and use of home-made filming technics which are almost child-like in their simplicity and ingeniosity...
Anyone out there also a fan?
19 comments:
Gondry is genius
'Lucus with the lid off' is well worth a look by those into film, one shot, lots of set up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5HOsnq_2j4
Bjorks 'Bachelorette' is also very cool.
and he plays drums (in Oui Oui?)..gotta love nutty drummers.
oh nice synth collection!
Yes! I'm a fan!! I love him. Loved Science of Sleep and Eternal Sunshine and Dave Chappelle's Block Party and can't wait to see Be Kind Rewind (Mos Def!!) I did a post a while back when he curated youTube's home page and there were some wonderful things on there, including that clip of the moving furniture I linked to in a comment last week. Very very early days of film and ingenious special effects--just like what he employs.
i adore Gondry, Science of Sleep is one of my fave films ever! so funny, and so human.
i adore Gondry, Science of Sleep is one of my fave films ever! so funny, and so human.
i adore Gondry, Science of Sleep is one of my fave films ever! so funny, and so human.
i adore Gondry, Science of Sleep is one of my fave films ever! so funny, and so human.
i adore Gondry, Science of Sleep is one of my fave films ever! so funny, and so human.
Oh, and did I mention how much I like Michel Gondry?
It's possible to search gondry on youtube and spend at least an hour watching amazing things.
I did imagine you would be a fan steenb ..I do like the pure joy felt in all his stuff...it is that little kids mind working...this is a CAR 'cos I think it is (even if it's a cardboard box) so much fun.
rubix cube with nose, that started on the youTube homepage didn't it?
I also imagined Blimpy would be a fan.
bumping into Charlotte outside your apartment door would be fun..yeah/no?
i love charlotte gainsbourg - her album is amazing, a classic (i nominated her on rr today - go dond, do dond!) and i love her speaking voice loads also.
i tried to find gondry's rubiks cube with feet, that started it all off, yesterdy but the video seems to have been removed.
he's very clever with scale, and i really admire that.
Oh cheers guys. Glad you liked the music, Saneshane. We had a smoked chicken salad (you buy cold chicken smoked in France - it's totally brilliant - washed down with a truly awesome pino gris and we had this list playing away - it just felt good) Blimpy, I'll post the Rubik's cube with the feet for you anon and more importantly someone who has also posted the explanation. I'll also stick on the Rubik's cube with the nose - which no one has yet explained... Steenbeck, I was kind of sure you'd love Gondry too. Do let me know when you see 'Be kind, rewind'. As a film maker, I want to know our opinion. I just want to point out that, apart from the Gondry mention, two of the songs in the list are French - Daft Punk and Cerrone. Yeyyyy!!
Here's the rubik's cube with the feet and the explanation
Rubiks cube with feet
And here's the utterly terrifying Rubik's cube wuth the nose. I Love him!!!!
With the nose!
I went back to January 'Spill to find if you could still see Gondry's curation of youTube http://readersrecommend.blogspot.com/2008/01/michel-gondry-picks-youtubes.html
But I foolishly linked to a video not the home page, so I guess not. I loved the making-of portion of the Science of Sleep video.
Steenbeck - I'll allow myself the luxury tomorrow. Truth is, I was so tired yesterday I crashed out five minutes before the end of the film and am hoping against hope that Stefan ends up with Stefanie. I'm taking the portable DVD player to bed to find out. The making of will be awesome. I love the little cloth poney he manages to animate.
Just added a bonus track my lovelies - Eighth Day by New wave Princess Hazel O'Connor. A brilliant nightmare scenario of science gone very very wrong. This song pre-empted Terminator and The Matrix. Utterly brilliant.
Gondry's like a happier version of Tim Burton or a more child-like Terry Gilliam. When you see a Gondry's film you'll know it's him!
@1mfr - shame there's not more directors out there that you could say the same thing about, eh?
or is it? maybe a director's "style" can interfere with the story being told, which is the antithesis of cinema, no?
1mfr - that's a great pseudo and I very much appreciate your dropping in. Fantastic desciption of Gondry. See you soon on this blog!
Blimpy - that's the big question. I personally love films where you have a clear signature of the Director. And the style does interfere sometimes with the narrative - Greenaway, Bela Tarr and Tarantino would be examples.
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