Here Comes The Sun

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A couple of weeks ago, Michel Gondry had a nightmare. The Frenchman is a filmmaker, but in his dream he was the lead character in a semiautobiographical movie. Playing him was French actor Patrick Dewaere, who was popular for playing luckless losers and social misfits in the 1970s until he committed suicide. "This guy blew his brains out," Gondry says, in an accent as strong as ripe Roquefort. "I'm really scared of dying." Dewaere as Gondry was in a car, with "this beautiful woman who was a mixture of three or four girls who broke my heart," and the car crashed. The scene repeated itself over and over like a film loop, Gondry's very own Groundhog Day, without Bill Murray for comic relief. "There was nothing I could do to change it," he laments. "I woke up in a sad mood, a depression."

He couldn't have stayed glum for very long, because Gondry, awake, is living an altogether happier kind of dream. His

	I wanted people to get it. [But] I was surprised people responded on such a personal level — MICHEL GONDRY

new, real film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which premieres across Europe from next week, has wowed U.S. critics. Already a legend for his music-video and advertising work, Gondry, 40, seems to have overcome the commercial and critical failure of his debut feature, 2001's Human Nature. And he's setting the standard for other French directors who are giving Hollywood a Gallic accent. Far from a car crash, his career has just shifted into high gear.

Eternal Sunshine tells the story, in real time and through flashbacks, of lovers Joel Barish (Jim Carrey) and Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet). When their affair fails, Clementine signs up with Lacuna Inc. for a brainwashing process that wipes away all memories of Joel. He finds out and tries to do the same of Clem. But what happens when, midwash, he decides he doesn't want to erase her after all? Gondry got the idea from Pierre Bismuth, an artist friend, about four years ago. "I had the thought that one day it would be possible to erase a specific memory," Bismuth says. "I thought it would be useful if you broke up with your girlfriend or boyfriend." The notion stirred Gondry, who's single and claims "not much success" in love. The two built a basic story that the king of quirk, Charlie Kaufman (Being John Malkovich), embellished into a script.

Carrey and Winslet signed on, but they had never worked with Gondry before and his unorthodox style took some getting used to. He unnerved some of the cast by leaving the camera running between takes — actors weren't always sure when they had to be "on." In doing so he captured some spontaneous, less rehearsed moments. Gondry admits that his unorthodox techniques sometimes made the mood on set a little tense, but he calls it "tension we created. I don't think I've ever shot anything the easy way. We felt pressure to make it the right way." And that meant forcing everyone to try new methods in search of the best takes and the right feel.