Microbe et Gasoil (2015)
Directed by Michel Gondry

Film Review

Michel Gondry is not the most likely director to turn his hand to a teen movie but given the mind-blowing diversity that is apparent in his films to date perhaps we shouldn't be too surprised by his latest genre-spanning oddity, Microbe et Gasoil.  A coming-of-age piece dolled up as a classic road movie, Gondry's latest film is as much a hymn d'amour to the director's bricolage approach to his art as a sincerely crafted portrait of adolescence, sneakily stirring our emotions as it presents the wildly humorous exploits of two individualistic teenagers embarking on their personal odyssey across France in a home-made car that cunningly doubles as a hideout.  Anyone who loved Gondry's cutely experimental La Science des rêves (2006) will adore this do-it-yourself bout of summer madness, which can't help looking like a Terry Gilliam take on Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or a recycled episode of The Goodies.

Microbe et Gasoil is a world apart from Gondry's previous film, the insanely ambitious L'Écume des jours (2013) which flopped so spectacularly at the box office in spite of the dream casting of Romain Duris and Audrey Tautou in the lead roles.  It was Tautou who prompted Gondry to embark on this quirky nostalgia trip (diverting him from his original intention of adapting Philip K. Dick's sci-fi novel Ubik), and the director repaid the actress by getting her to appear as a dowdy old maid-type in his film.  For the film's main roles, Gondry cast two inexperienced newcomers - Theophile Baquet, who had previously featured in Christophe Barratier's La Nouvelle guerre des boutons (2011), and Ange Dargent making his screen debut.  Baquet and Dargent form a chalk-and-cheese pair that works like a dream and their performances are not only endearingly true-to-life but also effortlessly funny.  Here's a great comedy double act in the making.

In most teen movies (particularly those from America), teenagers tend to come across as cocksure brats with fairly settled adult identities, so the most refreshing thing about Gondry's film is that its heroes are not at all like this.  Rather, they are two gawky adolescents who are far from sure of themselves, even embarrassed by their awareness of how they differ from others.  Their road trip isn't so much a teenage prank as a desperate attempt to escape from a world that neither of them feels he belongs to, but what they are really running away from is themselves.  Neither boy is yet ready for adulthood and by setting off in search of their own private Idaho in the backwaters of France they are putting off the inevitable.  The day isn't far off when they will have to accept who they are and make the most of it in an adult world.

Microbe et Gasoil is a fairly mechanical retread of familiar themes but Gondry's flair for innovation (apparent as much in the story's surreal flights of fancy as in its bricolage construction) gives it an infectious vitality and freshness.  Woven into all the tomfoolery (which includes some colourful escapades typical of the road movie genre) there is a perceptive and thoughtful portrait of adolescence which comes close to making Truffaut's Les 400 coups (1959) appear cloyingly superficial.  It isn't just the characters' awareness of their individuality (the ugly duckling syndrome) that freaks them out, it is also their nascent sexuality, which provides the film with some of its more poignant and honest moments.  More than just a bog standard teen movie, Gondry makes this a riotous celebration of individuality which befits his standing as one of the most hard-to-pin down and idiosyncratic filmmakers of his generation, whilst also revealing a more compassionate side.  The director's obvious contempt for the internet age manifests itself in one scene in which a mobile phone is ingloriously dispensed with, removing the one thing that might otherwise derail the main characters' striving for independence.  There's a moral here - maybe.

Film Synopsis

Daniel, nicknamed Microbe on account of his puny build and long hair, finds an unlikely friend in Théo, a free-spirited loner whose love of petrol-driven engines has earned him the soubriquet Gasoil.  Both are friendless outsiders who want to rebel against their mediocre families, and they get the opportunity to do just that during the long summer holidays.  Microbe's flair for design (which had previously been confined to erotic drawings) and Gasoil's skill as an inventor enable them to build their own motor vehicle, from a lawnmower engine and some borrowed planks of wood.  Admittedly, what they come up with looks more like a garden shed on wheels than a car, but it is roadworthy enough to supply their shared need for escape and adventure.  What ensues is a long and eventful voyage of discovery, by the end of which the two fifteen year olds are completely transformed...