L'écume des jours [Mood Indigo] (Michel Gondry, 2013)

[Black Hat]

Is this not getting a US release? One of my favorite books this is. Also, David where are you, New Zealand?

[domino harvey]

Drafthouse is

[Black Hat]

Yeah I finally figured out that meant theatrical but that's a long way away. I see myself trying out that JBHIF link David provided.

[zedz]

David, if you responded well to this, I'd also recommend The Science of Sleep. It also has a similar bipolar tone and surfs waves of (more low-tech) whimsy into some very dark psychological territory, ending up with a rather detached and troubling view of the kind of relationship so many films completely sentimentalize. I think it's Gondry's best feature to date, and Bernal and Gainsbourg are very sensitive to the film's slippery moods.

[zedz]

Good luck with it!

For me, the secret of the film's success is its realization that having a relationship with the kind of ultra-zany boyfriend / girlfriend that seems to have taken up residence in so many contemporary indie / art films

Spoiler

would actually be pretty fucking terrifying

- and Gondry's visual invention is just the icing on the cake.

[dad1153]

Caught a screening of the short version of "Mood Indigo" (which premieres theatrically in the States this weekend) Saturday afternoon at a packed NYC theater with Michel Gondry in attendance for a Q&A. He said he played ball with the distributors' request for a shorter version and took it as a challenge to try and improve the film and make it more accessible by focusing on making Audrey Tatou's character more likable. Gondry also mentioned that he considered shooting the film on old film stock to give it a more nostalgic feel and rejected it. He went with RED cameras instead because, he said, he deliberately overstuffed the narrative with old school props and film techniques to make-up for the lack of film texture, and that film stock with the props/techniques would have made "Mood Indigo" too fake looking.

Having not seen the longer version or read the book the movie is based on (and based on Gondry's description of some of the scenes he cut) I can only assume "Mood Indigo" is meant to be have an unsatisfying and downbeat ending by default, with the journey to the destination being your reward. It's a classic boy meets/loves/loses girl movie trope given a visual jolt by its colorful flights of "Pee-Wee"-like fancy (from both the original book and Gondry's own touches, like the moving typewriters, Audrey's animated sketches and stop-motion animation), but outside of style for style's sake the core of the movie feels hollower and more exposed as its downbeat nature unfolds. As in "Scott Pilgrim," the fantastic rules of this universe are constantly thrown at the audience for them to either sink or swim on their own, with mixed results. Love the movie's version of the internet, but that contraption piano/alcohol dispenser thing and the mouse bits were too much (and yes, I know they're taken from the book). I love "Amelie" as much as anyone with a high tolerance for sugar highs, but Audrey Tautou's too old to be playing subdued manic pixie girl to Romain Duris' ill-fitting manic pixie boy act.

As someone that has only found "Eternal Sunshine" watchable as far as Gondry is concerned "Mood Indigo" left me surprisingly cold and wishing more time had been devoted to Nicolas (Omar Sy kills it whenever he's on screen) or Alise (Aïssa Maïga), especially since the latter's outbursts toward the end feel like they came out of nowhere. I'm pretty sure if Gondry hadn't been there for the Q&A nobody would have clapped at the end, because when those credits rolled you could hear the collective silence screaming loudly 'That's it?'

[adavis53]

While I haven't caught the film yet I can confirm that that is pretty much exactly how the book ends. It's halves are pretty precisely and evenly split between a hectic, euphoric world and an immensely dark and tragic one. The book also doesn't pay a great deal of attention to the minor characters unless they're interacting with the main, so that may explain Gondry's lack of treatment to them.

Which cinema did you see the short version at in NYC? I saw the showtimes at the Sunshine had it listed as being over 2 hours which seemed like the longer cut but I don't know if that was just a misprint.

[dad1153]

It was the 6PM showing on Saturday at Landmark Sunshine, which was nearly sold out on the big theater 1 downstairs. Sunshine listed the running time of the movie as 93 min. on the website.

[domino harvey]

Finally watched the original ("Extended") French cut of this and loved it. I am not familiar with the source material but it's my understanding that this phantasmagoria of insane, slightly sinister live action cartoonery is more or less true to the spirit of the text-- all the more impressive since it comes off as 100% Full Gondry at-length. I knew I was in for an unusually potent treatment from Gondry when the film opens with an apparent dream sequence and gradually the viewer realizes, No, the whole world of the film is actually like this. It's audacious to say the least. I'm not sure I understand the bellyaching about Tautou with regards to either her performance or her character (I found both charming? Guess I'm either 2 Cool 4 School or an L-7), and I am horrified at what this film would look like with 36 minutes missing. This is a film where the compounding grace notes and noodling is the point (and the film itself more or less acknowledges how little the film is invested in the plot itself when it removes a seemingly key sendoff sequence one would expect with this sort of story), so streamlining the wonky, all-over-the-place structure seems like a bad idea. Like most viewers, I greatly prefer the non-stop aggressive whimsy of the first half to the more morose second half, but since the whole thing is structured like a flower itself (cultivation, growth, beauty, fading beauty, death, dissolve), I can't really hold this as a fault of the film. Mood Indigo is a lovely, weird, bizarre, unique, and somewhat unsettling experience. Thank God!

[Cold Bishop]

I'm not sure I understand the bellyaching about Tautou with regards to either her performance or her character (I found both charming? Guess I'm either 2 Cool 4 School or an L-7), and I am horrified at what this film would look like with 36 minutes missing.

Other than residual Amelie-hate, I'm not sure that there's anything wrong with Tatou on principle. But there is no doubt that she is much older than the character portrayed… Although that seems to be true about much of the cast. They're all supposed to be early twentysomethings IIRC and I think Chloé might be younger.

It's my understanding it's the second half which caught most of the pruning. Glad to see the film is finding admirers, although I'm still too close to the source material to build the courage and see it for myself.

I don't know if your Queneau-love ends with the Malle film, but if you like him, Vian is highly recommended.

[The Narrator Returns]

Drafthouse Films' Blu-Ray will contain both the international and domestic cuts of the film

[therewillbeblus]

I haven't read the novel, but Gonry's tangled form is perfect for the tonal rollercoaster this adaptation demands. Taking a page from his approach to The Science of Sleep, he flaunts his infinite creative power just as he emasculates himself to the gravity of life stressors, building imaginative worlds that aspire to be purely stimulating but are populated with characters with erratic emotions, grounding us to the familiar we want to disengage with. Even in the early act we get glimpses of addiction, obsessions, negative core beliefs, yearning, and pain, though these waves match the serenity and grandeur of life's highs, so ensues a bifurcation of our attention into both the magical spectacle and bound to humanity’s dysregulative pathos.

The film’s narrative structure is built like the evocative sensations of life when sharing your soul with another. The wild inventiveness of single life with little cares beyond selfish aims morphs into a snowballing momentum as the couple begins courting through marriage, turning up the mania toward the divine. The second half deals with the yin to the first part’s yang, focusing inward on the mundane- emphasized with Nicolas’ observation that the sun used to shine brighter through the window- and honing in tighter and tighter, to the point of suffocation, inevitably onto the immense struggle that comes from being exposed to a love’s suffering without the ability to fully share the load of their burden. This is a novel kind of existential terror because it's blended with unbearable emotion ruminating in limbo space, as the connective tissue between the couple remains strong but the energy cannot be actualized as it was during 'easier' times of blossom, when only optimistic opportunities seemed to exist.

While I'll join the chorus that the first half is undeniably more enjoyable, the long final act of impending doom was just as perfect in its own way, mirroring The Science of Sleep's pressurized authenticity of personal crisis stemming from interpersonal limitations conflicting with needs and desires. It feels like a paradox to call this film a depiction of egocentric drives sourced from the ricochet of empathy, but it's also true as the self is often only accessible place to meet the needs of our own minds and hearts when our partner is so far away. This isn't Gondry's best film, but it may be his best use of his gifts with the physical to reinforce his favorite themes of the enigmatic. Even the allegorical depletion of funds seems like a more Gondrian stamp of draining the self of emotion through tangible means than it is a capitalist jab. Loss has been touched on countless different ways through artistic mediums over the years, but you can always rely on a filmmaker this singularly elastic to express it via completely fresh strategy, thankfully with an attitude inclusive of the graceful reasons, translated into warm auras of sublime, to explain why it's a loss at all.