Michel Gondry is capable of making a film solely with paper, scissors, and a phone, and creating a stir. Gondry was recently at the Berlinale to talk about Maya, Give Me a Title, a delirious, joyful, and very charming commotion of just an hour in length that may not redefine the animation genre, but certainly gives it a different twist; a twist that indeed moves.
"I took a long time to get a smartphone. I think I was the last of everyone I know. In the end, I got one and was surprised by the things that could be done with the camera, which was basically speeding up and slowing down time with time-lapse. I started playing small games with my daughter, and the game became a habit," he explains as ritualistic as it is tumultuous. The father-daughter entertainment lasted six years, from when little Maya was four until she turned 10. And the game he speaks of was as simple as the girl giving a title, mostly of a surreal nature, and the father making an effort to create a story with his new discovery. With the phone, with paper, and with scissors. That's all. Well, actually, there's a cat named Doubidou, a giant, a red fish, a magical potion that shrinks pickles (yes, really), a plane flown by birds, an earthquake, a sea of ketchup, and always a girl on a scooter named, you guessed it, Maya.
"Honestly," the director explains, "I believe technology limits creativity. And I don't want to sound nostalgic or too old. It's true that the computer can do many things for you. But infinite creativity is found in paper and scissors. Nothing more is needed. What happens with new technologies is the same as with Lego pieces. Before, you had colored blocks and could do whatever you wanted. Now, you buy a box with the sole purpose of making the figure they want. You just have to follow the instructions. I am convinced that the more basic the rules are, the more freedom you have." And in this explanation lies the entire project.
At one point in the film, the narrator with the voice of French actor Pierre Niney pauses in the midst of the thrilling tale of squirrels stealing hammocks and wonders: where can the story go now? Good question. Impossible to predict even for a second. Occasionally, the film interrupts itself, and Maya herself appears on camera doing something. What? Ask the squirrels. And occasionally Maya, Give Me a Title takes another pause, becomes self-aware, and Gondry himself explains how Give Me a Title is made. Cinema within cinema or Gondry within Gondry. "In the past, the audience that went to see the Sex Pistols live left the concert convinced that they could make the same type of music. My intention is a bit punk in that sense. Hopefully, viewers will leave the cinema, take their phone, and, why not, become filmmakers themselves," he states seemingly with pride. Gondry multiplied by all Gondry viewers. A truly Gondry idea.
The first of the stories that make up the uncontrolled torrent of imagination that is the film places its protagonist as a reporter of an inevitably chaotic event. An earthquake wreaks havoc as only earthquakes can wreak havoc in the imagination of any lover of havoc. Paper buildings fall, paper bridges break, paper rivers overflow, and in general, paper things are cut by paper scissors. Our heroine will have to travel to the very center of the Earth where an unconscious scoundrel named Michel Gondry plays the drums, the paper drums, too loudly, in an exaggeratedly seismic manner. That's the pattern. We will also see how a flood of tomato ketchup is drained thanks to the intervention of (spoiler) some... Better keep it to ourselves. And so on.
Maya, Give Me a Title is, almost by definition, by its unpredictability and self-awareness, the opposite of an algorithm. Maya, Give Me a Title, like its creator, is a commotion.
And not a word about the film Golden with Pharrell Williams. Another commotion.