Be Kind Rewind (2008) or Anand has a fight with Ali part one

Expectations are a funny thing. When we see a comedy, Judd Aptow's films come to mind, we don't feel betrayed when the dim protagonist bumbles through the film only to miraculously transform into an intelligent, emotional human being. But when we are presented with similarly non-dynamic characters in Michel Gondry' Be Kind Rewind, we feel cheated. Gondry is supposed to be an artist! But the thing is Gondry has never promised to present fully realized characters or a plot grounded in reality and the sort of film making he celebrates in Be Kind Rewind, both hollywood and backyard productions, don't either. So this is a flawed film but the flaws are forgivable if you accept that Gondry's creations come with their own style of camp.

Of course, Gondry's considerable knack for imaginative shots and homemade sets makes forgiving him particularly easy. And this film was built to show off Gondry's DIY genius. The protagonists hastily recreate classic blockbusters like Robocop with homemade sets and slap dash special effects that are as inventive as they are charming.

And ultimately, Gondry's thesis about cinema absolves him. For Gondry, movies are more then just the characters and plot which inhabit them, they exist in the viewing public's memory and communities of experience are formed around them. Sweding itself is central to this celebration of collective memory. Sweded films are not shot by shot remakes of their sources but rather 15 minutes of what everyone involved remembers about the film and then some stuff that the creators just made up ( hilariously shown by Jack Black's mangling of the Ghost Busters' theme song). This is why Rush Hour 2 can play an equally important role in community building as the protagonist's Fats Weller documentary and why this film, with it's two dimensional characters and fantastical plot, can make an important and artistically justified statement about movies. Is Be Kind Rewind's final scene whimsical and unrealistic? Yeah, but so is a robotic super cop with the soul of a human trapped inside.

Grade: B+