Beck - Cellphone’s Dead

The idea is one of spatial mutation where Beck plays a game of transformer hide-and-seek with a building. Except both Beck and his perpetrator don’t really have an identity as they transform into armchairs and doors in an effort to evade one another. And there’s really three of them. And they all might be Beck. Hmmm… maybe you should go read the original treatment to get a grip on it all. In the end, I don’t think Gondry’s high-concept recipe is cooked-all the way through. Knowing what he was shooting for, I can appreciate some of the more abstract qualities, but in the end there is no denying that the whole thing ends up feeling like the most boring episode of Transformers you’ve ever seen. I think the transformation immediately evokes the idea that a “thing” transforms into another “thing”, not that one thing becomes another in both identity and space, which is the higher concept Gondry reaches for but can’t get off the shelf. I think the issue may be that the CGI portions of the morphing just don’t cut it and it creates an odd, confusing visual. I know this has to kill Gondry on the inside as the man loves his effects like he loves his women (practical), and I’m sure he took every step necessary to minimize his reliance on ILM-style trickery. I guess I’m saying that if you don’t like this video, blame George Lucas. That said, it’s got a look and style that are all Gondry and stand-out from the crowd. Gondry’s fascination with spatio-temporal manipulation is as strong as ever and I’m interested to see what the man does if he continues taking it down this higher-concept path… he’s progressed so much from the era of “let’s make it in Legos!”. Unfortunately, sometimes when you point at the bleachers, you hit a foul ball.