Venice, Paris: news of Michel Gondry


MICHEL GONDRY, DO IT YOURSELF!

MICHEL GONDRY, DO IT YOURSELF! (François Nemeta) is a documentary (see IMDb) about the named eccentric French filmmaker (most known for his Charlie Kaufman collaboration, ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND) and seeks to show his unique working method. It debuted at Venice September 4. It will be released by Reservoir Docs. Date and details not yet announced.

LE LIVRE DE SOLUTIONS/THE BOOK OF SOLUTIONS (Michel Gondry) is his first feature since MICROBE & GASOLINE (NYFF 2015), debuted at Cannes Directors' Fortnight this June 21. It opens in France this week, September 13. It is a comically heightened version of the director's own experience completing his 2013 MOOD INDIGO, and features the actor Pierre Niney playing Gondry as a floundering director rejected by his production company who has stolen his four-and-a-half-hours of film and gone out in the boonies to edit them on his own (with a team) but keeps procrastinating. At Cannes Owen Gleiberman in Variety called the film "annoying" and the protagonist a "sociopathic pest" and numerous other unattractive things. Sheri Linden in Hollywood Reporter, kinder, described it as an "uneven comedy" that "loses its thread" but concluded that "Before it grows repetitive and disjointed in the second half, much about the film is wise and deliciously funny." (The French TRAILER has some enthusiastic pull-quotes.) Of the Venice documentary release MICHEL GONDRY, DO IT YOURSELF!, there have been release reports (see Variety), no reviews. Both of these will be of much interest to Michel Gondry fans. (See also the May Eric Kohn story about Gondry and his new film from IndieWire.)