A five-hour length double-sided CD with a huge collection of Gondry's video-clips, commercials, short films and a documentary about him, which go from year 1987 to year 2003.
The video-clip collection is extensive and impressive and shows the largeness of Gondry's creativity world, from the delightful low-budget animated clips of his band Qui Qui, to the spectacular ones of modern pop-rock bands and soloists. I especially liked his videos for Bjork and the Chemical Bros, but all of them are fantastic, so different, unique and so very Gondry.
There are a few commercials, but they are just visually brilliant and impacting, less Gondry-ish so to speak, but the humor and naughtiness are still there. The one for Levis is just fantastic.
The collection of short stories is not as homogeneous and extensive, and mixes shorts that Gondry made for his family (birthday presents), others that express things that happened to him when young, and those directed to the public, still inspired in his life, with different styles and aesthetics. I loved "So Tiny" and "The Letter".
The bio-documentary is OK, and shows Gondry's childish, creative and naughty personality, but is not well structured, with bits of information missing. The figure of the father, who seems to be so important to him, is barely mentioned, but his mother is over-present. I would have liked a little bit more of biographical details and interviews from his childhood and youth friends, his brothers, and more personal things. However, the documentary focus more in his professional and creative work, giving a detailed explanation on how and why he made some videos, interviews with the bands for whom he worked, a lot of footage about his band Qui Qui, and some hints of his personal life, but very reduced. I think both things could have occupied similar space, but the professional part ends dominating the documentary. I loved that too, but it left me craving for more.
If you like Gondry and/or good quality music clips you'll enjoy this independent DVD.
