The "Be Kind Rewind" video rental store in the film is located in a small town called Passaic near New York, New Jersey. The owner, Fletcher, had no money to repair the dilapidated storefront. He could not meet the security standards of the town government and was facing bankruptcy. destiny. The employee Mike and the old man are in love with his father and son. The old man couldn't bear to tell Mike that the store was facing a huge crisis and decided to go out alone to conduct market research and find a way to prosper the business and raise money to resolve the crisis. Mike was very serious and responsible when he was entrusted with the important task for the first time. Mike's friend, Jerry, played by the funny genius Jack Black, is a junkyard manager full of crazy thoughts. He was electrocuted and magnetized during an operation to destroy a nearby power station. As a result, he accidentally destroyed all the video tapes in Mike's store. In order to remedy the situation, the two men made their own home videos in desperation, imitating the famous bridges in famous movies, which led to countless hilarious scenes and details.
From the narrative point of view of the story alone, the film was not successful. The funny details were not fully integrated with the plot. There are many inexplicable fragments one after another, making the story somewhat fragmented. With the exception of Jack Black being able to hold down the venue a bit, the scenes where the old man and Mike appeared were dull and lengthy and not enough to attract the audience. However, the film has successful attempts and breakthroughs in three aspects, which are worthy of attention.
The first is the creativity of funny sections. The comedy highlight is of course a reappearance of an old classic film. The film even coined a word for it: Swede. Movies that have been recreated include "Ghostbusters", "Rush Hour II", "The Lion King", "Roboman", "Block Boys", "Drive for Miss Daisy", and even Kubrick's "2001 A Space Odyssey." To quote the character Jerry in the film, these recreated classic movies are "better than the original version" because they are "only twenty minutes." When the film progressed to filming about the famous American jazz piano player Fatz Waller, the innovative methods adopted were astounding, such as the use of huge moving cardboard cars to create the street scenes of American small towns in the early twentieth century. For example, comparing the black and white keyboard of a piano with the black fingers of black people and the white fingers of white people, or using broken electric fan blades to make the film old, etc. These are like playing house and full of childish creativity that people have to think of director Michel Gondry 2006 The masterpiece "Science Sleep" of 2015: flour and snow, cardboard carts, and gorgeous cuts. The imagination is really omnipotent!
The second is the overall nostalgic atmosphere. Although the plot of big capital chain mass production cannibalizing small street shops is not new, and Michel Gondry himself admitted in an interview that he did not like this kind of plot to save small shops, and mainly adopted the suggestions of the production for the film. The plot adds some sense of coherence and urgency; this cliche plot is combined with the plot that recreates Fatz Waller's life later, but it also creates an unspeakable nostalgic atmosphere. Especially when Fatz Waller’s jazz piano sounded, the reminiscence of the past was so real and moving. At that moment, all the so-called plots were no longer important. I also immersed myself in an atmosphere similar to homesickness, with blurring. Unclear picture. Listen to this moving groan from the heart.
The third is the final film release fragment. When there are so many vivid faces full of anticipation on the blue light of the projector, any audience who loves cinematic art cannot but think of the classic film that expresses the love of cinema-"Paradise Cinema". In fact, the message of love for film art has been euphemistically expressed in the previous plot: when the old man Fletcher did market research, he concluded that the rental shop would rent two kinds of movies in order to make money, action movies and comedies; rental shop’s A loyal customer, Ms. Falewicz, said that the purpose of recreating classic old films is to re-examine and appreciate the real best films-those excellent films that express sincere emotion and have a soul. Here, on the contrary, it conveys two kinds of messages one by one ironically and one by one: the irony of the Hollywood film industry flooded with vulgar commercial films and the attachment to the golden age of the film industry. If we contact the "documentary" of Fatz Waller in the film, the message conveyed by the director and screenwriter Michel Gondry is even more obvious: the plot itself (which happens to be the biggest element of the action films and comedies that have been satirized above) and the film The shooting concept and sincere attitude are of secondary importance. A good movie should have (at least strive to own) its own soul, not a puppet manipulated by commercial factors. Seeing this, no matter how demanding the audience is, it is inevitable that they will be moved by this simple and sincere emotion.
This Be Kind Rewind is like a pot of nostalgic stew, with a mix of ups and downs, serious and spoof, with exciting and touching moments as well as lengthy and tasteless cutscenes. Generally speaking, there is still no shortage of movies, especially for fans of Michel Gondry, the director's personal style is still strong and gratifying. It’s also worth mentioning that the “Swede” trend created by the film for children’s play. Be Kind Rewind recreates classic and famous movie clips. Inspired fans have also begun to recreate the highlights of Be Kind Rewind, such as the Youtube website. There are two British fans who recreated the movie trailer. Not only that, this trend is also spreading, and movie fans began to recreate crude versions of Fight Club, Kill Bill, Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Scarface, and Terminator. ……Maybe, Be Kind Rewind and YouTube (or Tudou, if this trend spreads to mainland China) will create a new form of entertainment, like "Pulp Fiction", "Death Illusion" and other niche movies Similarly, Be Kind Rewind itself will become a hot cult classic of different types.
Published in the 4th issue of "Movie World" 2008, please indicate if reprinting.
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