Be Kind Rewind
Review by Zachary Keith Parker
Comedies often employ diverse human relationships as a source for conflict to get the story going and humor to keep the audience seated. Some fond examples include the constant upheaval within the suburban family in Showtime's Weeds, Steve Carrell's lack of relations that makes him a 40-Year-Old Virgin, or the couple/buddy partnership most recently seen in Pineapple Express and Superbad with movie ancestors like Some Like It Hot.
In Be Kind Rewind, writer/director Michel Gondry does to comedies what he did to romances with Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind, dissolving the focus on cheap laughs and quick entertainment by making the lens a veritable eye, delighted to watch the quirks and development of human characters.
In the film, suburban development threatens to replace Mr. Fletcher's (Danny Glover) video store, where he lets his surrogate son, Mike (Mos Def) live and work. When Mr. Fletcher leaves for a tribute to Fats Domino, a local legend popularized and cemented in the local society by Mr. Fletcher, he leaves the responsibility for the store to Mike. Shortly thereafter, their next door neighbor, Jerry (Jack Black), is magnetized in a sabotage attempt and ignorantly destroys all the videotapes in Mr. Fletcher's store.
Trying to conceal the erasure, Mike
and Jerry record their own interpretation of movies onto the original
videotapes. Soon Ghostbusters, Rush Hour 2, and Robocop
among a plethora of other films become known for their “Sweded”
style: it's amateur movie making, the sort where you're not watching
for the story, meaning, or even acting. Like a home video, you watch
it because you know and love the dorks starring in it.
As Mike and Jerry draw in the talents
of others in the local community, relationships are tightened and
thus the community builds a central identity. The results of their
cooperation successfully impress and encourage others across the
nation. Moreover, these “Sweded” videos induce a resurrection of
a mostly decrepit town, and eventually, the morally nescient owner of
a competing corporate video store.
Additional oppression from other corporations threatens to destroy any future for Mr. Fletcher's local town staple as Mike and Jerry's “Sweded” mission is obstructed. In reply, the community begs for Mr. Fletcher to tell them how to best tribute Fats Domino under the leadership of Mike and Jerry. The resultant movie and its showing makes a statement in affirmation of the power of their “Sweded” mission work.
In this way, Be Kind Rewind has something much more substantial to say concerning the value of relationships and movies too. Like Christ, Mr. Fletcher leaves to give tribute to Fats Domino (a sort of “Father” figure here) and begin building a new kingdom, promising to return. Meanwhile, Jerry and Mike begin to create their own “Sweded” kingdom, which is in violation of copyright law.
As a mini-Trinitarian unit, their “Sweded” operation is an imitation creation where their talents and work is pointed inwards, towards themselves. Moreover, it's subtly noted that while the work has good outcomes, it could easily become an ego glory-fest. When their faked movies are halted, the community calls out for something real, something substantial.
Accordingly, Mike and Jerry adopt the spirit of Mr. Fletcher and follow his guidance in making a movie about the life of Fats Domino. The entire community offers a hand in documenting this testimonial to Fats, thereby strengthening their communal bond, which in the end, reaches out beyond the local town to all who can see their movie, their devoted example.
On another level, Mr. Fletcher's video store becomes a church of sorts, where its two priests, Mike and Jerry, invite the whole community to come and join this worship of movies. It's in this tightening of relationship within the community that Be Kind Rewind relishes the delight people take in movies, the delight people find in creating something new, and the delight people have in each other.
