Be Kind Rewind
Written and directed by Michel Gondry
New Line Cinema
2008
Rating:


Movies are part of modern culture's collective unconscious, making us all in someway – whether Hollywood studio lawyers like it or not – owners of the films we love. Michel Gondry magically literalizes that idea with "Be Kind Rewind," a valentine to the movies that are a part of us, to community, to friendship and to do-it-yourself showmanship.

Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover) owns the Be Kind Rewind video store/thrift shop in Passaic, N.J., that's an anachronism for two reasons: it only offers now thoroughly obsolete videotapes and those who work at the store are actually passionate about the films that are rented. While Mr. Fletcher is away spying on the competition of an impersonal, DVD-only video chain, he leaves Mike (Mos Def) in charge of the store. Mr. Fletcher tries to warn Mike against allowing his friend Jerry (Jack Black) into Be Kind Rewind, but Mike doesn't hear him properly, and it turns out to be a caution worth heeding.

In a mishap at the power plant he has declared war against, Jerry unknowingly becomes magnetized and thereby erases all of the tapes during a visit to the store. With Miss Falewicz (Mia Farrow) checking on the store for Mr. Fletcher and requesting a copy of "Ghostbusters," Mike, unable to find another videotape of the movie, decides to make his own version with Jerry. "I'll be Bill Murray," Mike says to Jerry, "and you be everybody else."

Mike and Jerry's hilarious but heartfelt rendition of "Ghostbusters" is quickly uncovered to be a knockoff, but instead of being busted, the friends are encouraged to make more movies. The friends decide to turn this enterprise into a way to save the store from impending demolition by charging $20 per film, initially claiming the movies are Swedish imports.

Despite being released by Time Warner company New Line Cinema, Gondry's film feels like a rebuke against a studio system that prefers heartless pyrotechnics to soulful filmmaking. Just compare the warmth of Mike and Jerry's "Rush Hour 2" to the real thing. The "Sweded" versions of the movies also allow Gondry to come up with highly inspired moments of lo-fi artistry that border on the sublime. The junkyard version of "RoboCop" and the pseudo-puppetry of "The Lion King" are particularly inspired, and it's hard to imagine a more wonderful, joyful moment in movies this year than the single tracking shot that follows Mike, Jerry and their newfound partner in crime Alma (Melonie Diaz) remaking "When We Were Kings," "King Kong," "2001: A Space Odyssey," "Carrie" and "Men in Black."

"Be Kind Rewind" is full of the kind of humanity, awe and filmmaking passion all too frequently absent from Hollywood products and the surging Indiewood contrivances. This is a film that truly loves movies and the communal art of creation.

Posted Friday, February 29, 2008

Link to this review:
http://filmzeus.pressbin.com/film/be.kind.rewind