Human Nature: Michel Gondry

So, here's something odd: Michel Gondry's Human Nature is basically what would happen if Charlie Kaufman wrote a screwball comedy. Kaufman's script for this film is his most overtly comedic, full of visual gags intended to elicit chortles and pratfalls. Kaufman's films have always been aggressively weird, but this is probably the only time that idiosyncrasy was calibrated to be silly. I think it was the scene where Rhys Ifans gets repeatedly electrocuted in a laboratory while humping a projection of a naked lady that first made me realize this. Curiously, the film also contains one of Kaufman's most pessimistic endings; a confirmation that living beings--human or otherwise--are incapable of abandoning prejudices and inclinations once indoctrinated. Unlike many of his other films which end in tragedies for individuals, this ending suggests a tragedy for all sentient beings.

7/10