Last night I went along to the Glasgow Film Festival to see Mood Indigo. Michel Gondry's recent film was released in France in 2013 but premiered at the Glasgow Film Theatre last night.
I absolutely love Gondry's music videos and of course Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind so I was very excited about Mood Indigo. The film is an adaptation of a novel by Boris Vian.
The plot is very much a boy meets girl tale but Chloe (Audrey Tatou) ends up very ill because of a waterlily growing in her lung. Husband, Colin (Romain Duris) spends his last pennies trying to cure her illness. The story is very straightforward but the visual aspects of the film are where Gondry's attention has clearly been focused. The image above shows the couple taking a trip around Paris in a mechanical cloud and is very typical of the eccentric aesthetics of the film.
I would love to say that the film was beautifully emotive from beginning to end but unfortunately it wasn't the case. The quirkiness of the props was overbearing and often hard to follow. The charm often associated with Gondry's handmade props and stop frame animation was too much and at times came across as someone spending a great deal of money trying to create a 'handmade' look. The story became lost and by the end I didn't feel enough connection to the characters to be upset at their plight.
I think I was maybe expecting too much from the film and potentially judged it quite harshly. I have a knack of doing that when I love an artist or film-maker. The film is definitely worth seeing and maybe on a second viewing I might change my mind!
What do you guys think? Has anyone seen it?
I love Gondry's music videos and Eternal sunshine too, but I've been disappointed by everything else. The way you describe feeling about this new movie is exactly how I felt about Be Kind Rewind and Science of Sleep. His look is charming and he does whimsical well, but perhaps he needs to tackle more meaningful storylines (like Eternal Sunshine) if he wants to have real resonance. I think I'll be skipping Mood Indigo.
ReplyDeleteYeah it was lovely going as part of the Glasgow Film Festival because the atmosphere is so nice but the film ended up being something you wouldn't mind watching on the sofa rather than paying cinema prices.
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