Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?

I mean not to sound sycophantic but any document that has noam chomsky talking for 80 minutes is a valuable one. Gondry is an awkward guy which is fun to listen. They get along well. Noam is, as always, insightful and inspiring.

Gondry, a visionary whimsical director and director of some of my favorite movies ever, and Chomsky, one of the most important thinkers and linguists of the last century, and one of the 'idols' of my youth, sit face to face and talk about stuff. What could go wrong? A lot!

Gondry is an artist, not a linguist or a scientist, so I wasn't expecting him to be at Chomsky's level on what Chomsky knows best: linguistics and cognitive science. However, he does a good job at extracting some juice about many personal matters as well as a general discussion on Chomsky's themes. The conversation is not a chit-chat for sure, the subjects discussed are complex and need of your full attention, unless you are a linguist and familiar with those. The naive animation is whimsical and humorous, hilarious at times, sentimental at others, surreal at others, but very engaging; without the animation, I might have been watching my watch as much as the movie. Besides, the animation was really on point quite often, and Gondry is able to get onto animation difficult concepts, quite abstract at times, and make them look simple for us. When Chomsky relaxes, he seems to be a nice man, and it was lovely getting to know a bit about his family background and personal life, the human behind the brain. Finally, I also loved the introduction made by Gondry on how a documentary or a film about a person is the film-maker's filtered version of a given subject or person as the film-maker decides what goes on and what doesn't in a film, how a person is portrayed etc.

A few things irritated me or disappointed me in the film. The first is Chomsky's attitude at times, arrogant and elitist, who doesn't listen to Gondry. I found ironic that he, the quintessential linguist, had difficulty understanding that Gondry's mother tongue not being English, there were some semantic confusion of misinterpretation on his part, and that Gondry wanted to explain himself properly; however, every time he did so, Chomsky cut him sharply.Also, I expect Chomsky not to act as God, as this is not an academic symposium but a documentary for the general public. Several times in the film, he says "and that is wrong" and doesn't explain why is wrong, and moves on expecting us, the viewers, to get what he means by magic!

The second thing that annoyed me was the fact that Politics were left off the movie, except for a brief comment on Sarkozy. This was never going to be a film for the Masses, or the sort of film that attracts ultraconservative viewers, so why skipping Politics altogether?

Finally, Gondry himself irritated me a bit. I love his work, his vision, the fact that he doesn't take himself too seriously, and his endless curiosity and creativity. However, at times, I felt the film was as much about himself as was about Chomsky, and there was not need for that. Chomsky is not the Kardashians, he doesn't do this sort of stuff that often, why wasting time on Gondry's personal musings? I also found surprising that Gondry didn't discuss or establish which sort of questions were off the charts beforehand, because it's a bit painful hearing him asking Chomsky how he felt about his wife's death (can't you imagine that?) or what makes him happy.

Overall, a fascinating film that requires of your full attention, but it is rewarding, never boring, and offers an insight, albeit limited, into Chomsky the real man and some fascinating subjects as the way we humans apprehend reality.

Even when they are full of ideas, some filmmakers can be sometimes a bit 'stingy' when they try to film great thinkers. What happens when an image inventor confronts a creator of concepts? There can be many misunderstandings (maybe due to the language barrier?) and theaters can remain painfully empty. Not long ago, in 'Film Socialism', Jean-Luc Godard filmed Alain Badiou talking in front of an empty theater.

It seems that Michel Gondry accepts with great pleasure the emptiness that can sometimes separate images and philosophy on the screen. His film plays with the principle of 'illustration': this funny documentary is made of (often) naive drawings, coming from the discussion between the two men.

The viewer will not leave the theater with a manual on 'generative grammar' of the American linguist, MIT star. Instead he will be struck, blown away by the creative explosion of a free filmmaker, an inventor renewing at a rate of a thousand digressions and associations of ideas, with its memorial vein and dream, like in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Science of Sleep (his most romantic period). No wonder that the film is secretly haunted by Chomsky's absolute love for his late wife, Carol. Nonetheless, I found this 'little film' immensely refreshing.

This is a fantastic, intelligent wedding of word and image. It's like a genuine synthesthetic experience, like the animator wanted us to have a cogent, dependable hallucination of Chomsky's brilliant, eloquent statements. From time to time I would sort of "forget" whether I was hearing Chomsky or seeing what he was saying; they sometimes switched places... or (perhaps more accurately) truly merged in my mind, like finally having the image of one of those 3D "art" images pop out at you when your eyes finally settle into the correct parallax and focus mix. I found that when I was relaxed and letting the flow of ideation wash over me, my experience was "of a piece"; almost psychedelically.

What can I say? It's just a lovely way to mainline a genius' thinking; the filmmaker succeeds in his quest to enhance and tease out the intuitive aspects to technical/scientific thinking; and that's downright inspirational!

Check it out.

--------Addendum

Just want to add one more point. As much as I find Chomsky's politics to be vital and morally attuned, it STILL strikes me as a great artistic decision on the part of Gondry to 1) minimize the politics, 2) put them off 'til (largely) the end, and 3) subsume them to the task of conveying warmth (not urgency). You get a measured, requisite dose of Chomsky's politics, *without* the overwhelming sense one often gets with Chomsky that, up against so much troglodytic inertia, the task truly daunts. Bravo.

A series of interviews featuring linguist, philosopher and activist Noam Chomsky done in hand-drawn animation.

Because of Gondry's accent, and at times because of Chomsky's age, the discussion is a bit difficult to understand, and you have to focus. Interestingly, there is a communication breakdown between Gondry and Chomsky, as well, because of translation and pronunciation issues.

The film is part biographical, part about language acquisition. There is no discussion of politics, which is probably good, because it makes this a much more timeless presentation.

There is mention of "irreducible complexity", which seemed odd, and then Gondry mentions astrology? He seems to be a bit out of his league at times. At least he was able to get Chomsky to talk about his wife Carol, which has been a sensitive topic.