Film review: Gondry's Indigo works like magic
Edmund Lee
If this movie proves anything, it's that French filmmaker Michel Gondry badly needs a hug. After coming up with two romantic heartbreakers in (2004) and (2006), the music video veteran has again returned to the fantastical realm with , which somehow manages to be the gloomiest story of the lot.
Adapted from French author Boris Vian's seminal 1947 novel variously entitled , and in English, the film opens with a scene that hints at the metafictional flourishes of those earlier spectacles: writers are seated along rows of typewriters, which keep on moving horizontally from one person to the next until the papers are collected at the end of the lines, forming a book titled .
Although this premise, which is briefly revisited throughout, clearly alludes to the collaborative writing technique known as "exquisite corpse", Gondry's latest effort consists of a largely linear timeline that shies away from his usual Chinese box narrative structure.
The main character, Colin (Romain Duris), is a handsome bachelor who's wealthy enough to afford a house chef, Nicolas (Omar Sy of ), and live comfortably without working. Upon feeling the urge to fall in love, he encounters the affable Chloé (Audrey Tautou) almost immediately at a house party.
The two soon get married, but their happiness is cut short when, during their honeymoon trip, a water lily enters Chloé's body and begins to grow in one of her lungs. What transpires is a slow waltz towards death for her, and the unfamiliar experience of financial hardship and labour for her husband.
In a subplot that mirrors the despair of the newlywed couple, Colin's close friend, Chick (Gad Elmaleh), watches his life unravel as his obsession with the philosopher Jean-Sol Partre - the Jean-Paul Sartre of this alternate universe - corrupts his mind and alienates him from his girlfriend Alise (Aïssa Maïga).
In a stylistic decision that recalls a special edition of Park Chan-wook's (2005), opens in lush, vibrant colour before gradually fading to black-and-white, reflecting the progressively bleak atmosphere that the characters find themselves in.
At once ineffably lyrical and unbearably sad, is a tragic romance that exists entirely in a dream world. That may sound daunting, but if you feel like a sob story that's packed wall-to-wall with surreal imagery, this film is going to work like magic.
opens on August 1
