Best movie of this year hands down!

Let's be realistic.

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Gondry, by posing as a layman and genuinely trying to understand, asks the most basic questions which Chomsky goes on to address fundamental issues in philosophy and the foundations of modern science. The animations and illustrations merging with the voice of Chomsky in the background makes the loaded philosophical and scientific content accessible to the viewer. References from classical science to Galileo and Newton drive home the essence of science, a true endeavor to move from a description to an explanation about the world. Gondry's honest admissions of losing Chomsky's line of thought, further help in bringing the viewer on to the same page.The film's frank rendition of Chomsky's personal life and academic journey sets the context for the viewer to understand the 'greatest academic alive,' thus making the film more humane and relatable.PS: do watch the film with subtitles; because their accents make it difficult to follow their speech.

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.

B. The Director's command of English is not good enough in general. Consequently, he often replies "yeah, yeah" to Noam's points, and then rushes to change the subject, making it obvious that he didn't get what Noam was saying, and amounting to a rather ridiculous overall experience. Furthermore, this makes the Director unqualified to illustrate Noam's statements with animation, as opposed to someone who would deeply grasp those statements.C. The Director doesn't seem to be very knowledgeable or philosophically daring, which, considering that he plays a prominent role in the film, and gets to direct the conversations, brings the final product down.D. I used to like hearing Noam speak, but here, he makes points that are highly arguable. For instance, Noam claims that all visual illusions keep working even when you are aware of the illusion. Since I know from personal experience that this is not true, I can hardly take the rest of what he says here seriously.2/10.

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.