This is How Movies Should Be Made

Dreadfully Boring

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

This movie could very easily be called "Days of our Lives" considering the intense and very real story that tells. However, it manages to became a very special different kind of movie by the way it's played. I guess by now you can have an idea that this isn't one of those regular movies about "boy meets girl and falls in love and then there's life" that we are used to. It can get confusing and even a bit disturbing because of that, but in end that's what I found amazing. The very particular thing in this movie is the different way that colors, lights and movements were used to connect us with the story and set our emotions.At the beginning I hated it and really considered stop watching it. If it wasn't for my stubbornness to always watch the entire movie, knowing what I know now, I would have regretted! Yes, at the beginning it's confusing and weird. However when we reach the end we realize how the weirdness of the beginning helped setting the tone for the feelings that the story is supposed to bring. Mood Indigo could easily be a lifetime drama that would amaze simple audiences and not conqueror many more then the usual dramas, but the way on how it's played, like a children story (with a too much strong content to be played for kids!), kind of related to the more innocent me and made me feel the end with more intensity. I guess resuming it, this movie doesn't appear to be a regular life story but it is and I just loved the fact that was treated in a special way, making it's connection to a real story much bigger and in that way bringing more emotion. It's no spectacular movie but it's very interesting to watch. Also I think the title translation for English sort of lost a little bit of the message that the movie it's trying to pass.

After making 'Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind', a film that had heart, creativity, was emotionally engaging as well as occasionally funny, Michel Gondry has been getting steadily worse over the years. 'The Green Hornet' was further proof in my opinion that Gondry is a one film wonder and is better suited to music videos. I would like to think this film would prove me wrong, but it didn't. It just irritated me with it's quirky and overly random ideas and a playfully twee tone which I have grown to hate.Romain Duris stars as the wealthy bachelor Colin who lives in a converted train where pretty much anything turns into an animation. He has a live in lawyer who is also a chef named Nicolas (Omar Sy). He also has a friend named Chick (Gad Elmaleh) who has an unhealthy obsession with an existential philosopher Jean Sol Partre (obviously a play on the French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre). In his house, he has a door bell that comes to life when someone rings and it crawls around the room until someone steps on it. Also, people's legs go all noodley when they dance, Colin's shoes run away from him, there is a piano that makes cocktails and many more. There is not a single scene that goes by without multiple visual quirks or whacky, random events which just happen for no reason. It is as if Gondry made an endless list of any daft idea he can think of and decided to cram every single one of them into this film to annoy his audience into boredom. It is very tiresome after the first 20 minutes, and most of them are not funny. Why some members of the audience were laughing at every little thing that happens really escapes me. All these ideas did not add much to the characters or the story much which for me starved the film of any emotion when Colin meets Chloe (Audrey Tautau), falls in love and then goes on a date in what looks like a space ship attached to a crane. I found all the falling in love parts just mainly annoying and airy fairy. Too much twee makes John want to smash the screen into silence, just like Colin wants to smash a radio into silence when he hears a cheesy power ballad.Later in the film, it does take a progressively darker tone as Chloe accidentally inhales a water lily which starts to grow in her lung. When things go all sad and Colin has to work extremely random jobs to fund Chloe's recovery, I did not feel much in the way of emotion, I just felt mainly annoyance that these daft ideas were still happening in rapid fire pace. When the film ends, I just felt exhausted. That was enough quirkiness for me for one day (Although because of my occupation, I had to sit through this 3 times). Also I was surprised by the downer ending. As the relationship gets more difficult between Colin and Chloe as well as everyone else in the film, the hues become gradually more pallid until the final scenes where they are black and white. Some of the scenes looked very good and colourful, but for me, more suited to a music video.I feel the film was trying to say something more deeper and meaningful. Was it some kind of dream like allegorical tale of life. It may be vague, but it was all I can come up with as I was so distracted by all the stupid stuff. Sure a lot of hard work has gone into making all the animation and effects happen on screen, but it doesn't mean I have to like it! It does not give me great pleasure to say that this is in my opinion yet another mis-step from Gondry. I don't think he will make another great film on par with Eternal Sunshine. I'm sure he will still attract a devoted legion of fans who are into the quirky and the twee, but I shall not make much of an effort in future.

'MOOD INDIGO': Three and a Half Stars (Out of Five) French fantasy romance flick directed and co-written by Michel Gondry. It was also co-written and produced by Luc Bossi and based on the 1947 novel, 'Froth on the Daydream', by French writer Boris Vian. It tells the story of a rich inventor, living in a magically idealistic Paris, who falls for a woman he meets at a party. They quickly marry and then she becomes deathly ill, on their honeymoon, by a rare sickness. The film stars Romain Duris, Audrey Tautou, Glad Elmaleh, Aissa Maiga and Omar Sy (who recently appeared in such blockbusters as 'X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST' and 'THE INTOUCHABLES'). I loved the creativity and pure imagination of the film but couldn't get too involved in any of the characters or story.The story centers around Colin (Duris); a wealthy bachelor who invented the pianocktail (a cocktail making piano). He spends most of his time enjoying extravagant meals prepared for him by his servant, Nicolas (Sy), and chatting with his friend Chick (Elmaleh). When Chick tells Colin he's fallen for an American woman, named Alise (Maiga), Colin attends a friend's party in hopes of meeting a woman himself. Once at the party he meets Chloe (Tautou) and quickly falls for her. The two get married and everything seems perfect until Chloe becomes severely sick (due to a water lily growing in her lung).Visually the film is stunning and constantly interesting to look at. I love Michel Gondry and think he's a beautifully artistic director ('ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND' is one of my favorite movies). The actors in the film are all talented but their characters aren't very well developed; they're too cartoonish and don't seem like real people at all. That's my only problem with this movie. I absolutely love it's visual beauty but I just couldn't get into it's story. It would have been much better as a short film, or series of shorts, rather than a 2-hour and 11 minute feature.Watch our movie review show 'MOVIE TALK' at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew1sXPb-oQQ

It's been a long time since I've been acquainted with Michel Gondry. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Science of Sleep are two of my all-time favourite films. Be Kind Rewind was an unfortunate misfire but I already warmly welcome his style. However, I've never seen him quite so unrestrained like this. Mood Indigo is a truly fantasy world. No dream, no drugs, and nothing is how you'd expect. Not even dancing, not even a handshake. To say the world of Mood Indigo is surreal and absurd is an understatement and no words can quite grasp the chaos on screen. It's like an R-rated Dr. Seuss. Like Gilliam's Brazil. But, it's an absolute delight. Things may not make sense at any point, but it's not about symbolism, it's about expressionism. The characters are deeply human, and that's what counts. All these inventions, twists, obscurities all about emotion. And Mood Indigo constantly had me bellying with laughter or sinking an anchor in my stomach when tragedy strikes even when I wasn't sure what was happening.That's the spirit of filmmaking really, to feel how the characters are feeling, and this film achieves it admirably. But at times it is so dense that its hard to keep up. The special effects and production design are wonderful, but the way it's shot in HD does sometimes nullify its effects and brings us back to reality in a way it doesn't want (I would've preferred Gondry to not have his cameo). Sometimes the cast can't even keep up with it. I really wasn't sure about the cast at first. They're familiar faces, but they didn't seem to suit the tone, plus they felt too old. However, with the film's dark twist in the second half, so dark the film turns black and white, it did become apparent that these cast members fit this melancholic side of the world. I wish it wasn't so bloated in characters and was more restrained like The Science of Sleep. The great soundtrack definitely adds to its rich atmosphere too. I do hope this film will stick with me like his two best films. It may be manic, but it's thoroughly charming. Not Gondry's best but his best in a long while.8/10