Mood Indigo
Dir: Michel Gondry
2013
****
Michel Gondry started out making music videos, feature films were a logical progression and thankfully all the creativity and fun of his short films are still present. Mood Indigo is very loosely based on Froth on the Daydream, the 1947 novel by French author Boris Vian. The structure of the film is Vian's but everything else is very much Gondry's. Gondry's wacky visuals and surreal ideas are full of charm and wonder but I can't help but think that there is very little depth to it. I can't help but compare this to Terry Gilliam's The Zero Theorem that came out around the same time. Gilliam's message has been overlooked because of the visuals but Mood Indigo hasn't been judged the same way. I like both films, for very different reasons but I started to loose interest in Mood Indigo quite rapidly. The melancholic conclusion was a surprise and a bit of a disappointment if I'm being honest but huge credit for its originality. It is purely the wonderfully surreal visual ideas that make me rate is so highly but I will be far more critical of Gondry's next film if there is the same lack of depth.