French filmmaker Michel Gondry has built a reputation around his
inventively handmade, DIY visual aesthetic. Gondry’s films burst with fanciful
imagery, imperfectly crafted out of tinfoil and cardboard, and it’s tempting to
dismiss his films as frivolous exercises in quirkiness. But that would be to
ignore the real sense of sorrow lurking at the center of the director’s best
films. His ramshackle style was used to great effect in “Eternal Sunshine of
the Spotless Mind,” perfectly complementing Charlie Kaufman’s melancholy
script.
Based on the 1947 surrealist novel “Froth on the Daydream” by
Boris Vian, “Mood Indigo” takes the melancholy tone of “Eternal Sunshine”
several steps further in telling a tragic fable of doomed love.
The film’s opening establishes the charmed life of its hero,
an independently wealthy Parisian bachelor named Colin (Romain Duris). Colin
spends his free time inventing useless contraptions like his “pianocktail,” a
piano which automatically mixes cocktails, choosing various ingredients based
on the notes that are played. His apartment comes equipped with a doorbell that
springs to life and scurries down the wall every time someone rings, and a tiny
man dressed as a mouse on hand to assist Colin’s friend and personal chef,
Nicolas, with the cooking. At the conclusion of each extravagant meal, Nicolas
sweeps the leftovers, plates and all, into the garbage. These early moments
create a manic energy as Gondry goes a bit overboard with the whimsy, but
things slowly settle down as the story progresses.
After learning that all of his friends are all in the midst
of pursuing romantic relationships, Colin demands that he fall in love as well.
Attending a friend’s birthday party — rather, a birthday party for a friend’s
dog — Colin immediately meets Chloé (Audrey Tautou, “Amélie”). After a few
awkward attempts at flirting, he asks her to dance, admitting that he’s a bit
bumbling before she takes his hand and assures him that “we’ll bumble
together.”
What follows is a whirlwind courtship, beginning with a first
date in which the pair ride a cloud car suspended from
a crane that carries them through the skies of Paris, their legs hanging out
the bottom as they dangle high above the city. It’s not long before Colin asks
for Chloé’s hand in marriage. It’s around this point that Gondry reveals he’s
got a little more on his mind than pure whimsy. While on their honeymoon, Chloé
falls ill. It seems that a water lily has taken root in her right lung, and as
it grows, she will only grow sicker. The water lily is a pretty clear metaphor
for cancer, but by avoiding a straightforward depiction of the illness, Gondry
can skip the specifics and focus on making his audience feel the raw emotions
on display.
Colin dedicates his life to helping his wife get better, taking
menial jobs and spending his time and all of his money on treatments, filling
every square inch of her room with flowers when doctors tell him that that’s
the best way to combat the invasive seedling that’s growing inside of her.
Duris and Tautou, aside from making a particularly striking
couple, play their roles with complete sincerity. Their performances ground the
film — especially in the early going — keeping things from becoming too
cloying. And when it comes to it, they prove more than capable of making us
feel their pain.
Contrary to what one might imagine, the fantastical elements
don’t drain away from the picture as circumstances become dire. Instead, Gondry
uses them to bring his characters internal emotions to life; the walls
literally close in on Colin during a phone call informing him that his wife has
relapsed; their home withers and decays around them as Chloé’s health
deteriorates. Periodically the film cuts to a room of typists deciding the
course of the story, tapping away on an endless stream of typewriters passing
by on conveyor belts. In a darkly effective moment late in the film, Colin
breaches the walls of the room, hoping to forcibly write a happy ending for
himself. Who hasn’t at one point or another wished to rewrite the script our
lives seem to follow?
Even the film’s color palette turns darker as sadness seeps
its way in, and eventually the color drains away completely, so the final
portion of the film is seen entirely in black and white.
All the artifice proves poetic, and somehow more hauntingly
effective than straight reality at making us feel the emotional truth at the
heart of its tragic tale.
This article appears in Aug 13-19, 2014.
