Screenhead

You’ll probably have heard more about Be Kind Rewind’s marketing tricks than you have of the movie itself. What started as an initial trailer grew into a web-site that “Swedes” (more on that later) the internet itself, with its own cardboard cut-out versions of Facebook and IMDB. Next, director Michel Gondry sweded the official trailer of the movie, acting out the parts of the cast himself. But behind all this inventive acts of promotion, is there substance to Be Kind Rewind?

The film is the tale of the video store entitled Be Kind Rewind, where old Mr. Fletcher clings to his failing VHS rental store. His building is a crumbling mess, but he keeps his staff (Mike, played by Mos Def) enthused through telling tales of jazz legend Fats Waller, who lived in the building during the roaring twenties. Mr. Fletcher leaves the store to Mike, who is warned to keep Jerry out. Jerry (Jack Black) is a delusional mechanic who lives in a caravan, and believes the government is out to get us through electricity. After an attempt to sabotage the local power station, Jerry becomes magnetised and accidentally erases all of Be Kind Rewind’s tapes. Desperate to appease their few remaining customers, Jerry and Mike decide to make their own versions of the store’s films (a technique they call “sweding“, in which a film is remade and often improved on), which becomes a surprising success.

This is where the film has most of its appeal. Most of us will find great delight in the lo-budget methodology to badly mimic the classics. For example, when they recreate Boys in the Hood, the puddle of blood released from a gunshot wound is created by cutting in a plain pizza onto the ground. The proton beams of the Ghostbusters are recreated with fish line and tinsel. It’s all a cute way of paying tribute to the imagination and creativity. That said, anyone familiar with Gondry will not be surprised by his cut-out cardboard technique, which he has used in most of his films. And while he has utilised it better in this film by giving it a context (unlike in his last film The Science of Sleep, a mess of a movie), you can’t help but feel Gondry has his limitations.

Naturally, the plot gets complicated once word of the sweded films spreads, and soon film distributors have lawyers on the case. But Mike and Jerry decide to counter the warnings of The Man by deciding to make their own film about a local subject, and incorporating the local community to play their part in the activity. At this stage, the film takes on a new mood, that of the Capra-esque heart-warming tale. It’s actually surprising to realise that this film contains two elements rare to modern cinema. Firstly, you don’t see too many films concerned with the working-class city community. And secondly, you very rarely see an uplifting film in which a community come together.

But, despite all this making the film sound great, it actually rings hollow. Perhaps it’s because by the time we actually get to the fun film references and upbeat ending, the film has already been tainted by the weak start. Jerry’s assault on the power station feels more like the cheap and childish antics of Tenacious D, and really lets the film down. The characters are mostly flat. Jack Black is just the usual wacky Jack Black we’ve seen in all of his comedies. And sadly Mos Def just doesn’t have the acting skills to truly make Mike feel real. This adds weight to the theory that Gondry really needs to work with a talented writer, such as Charlie Kaufman who wrote Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. This is a deep problem for a film that wants to have lots of heart. But in the end, can we really care when the characters are virtually non-existent?

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