La lettre (1998) User Reviews

Short but sweet

[dove95 · 10/10 · 13 March 2004]

This not only is one of the best short films I've ever seen to date, but it's also one of the hidden treasures on the Director series DVD for Michel Gondry.

The use of black and white cinematography make the theme of the short that much more poignant. The actor who portrays the protagonist does a fantastic job in making you believe in him and not thinking he's this obsessed kid . .. because really, what 12 year old is really obsessed with love? It's so innocent, at least for him.

Sorry so short, but I can't really write anything without spoiling it, so just see it!

mesmerizing black and white, superlative dream sequence

[Quinoa1984 · 10/10 · 9 June 2009]

Michel Gondry's creativity knows no bounds. If this man can think it, see it, dream it or whatever it out his consciousness, it's bound to be at least interesting. At most we plunge skull and soul first into a piece of a body of work that is with few compare. He is a master craftsman of a playful variety, knowing all the right tricks with priority on those that can be done practically and with an attention to creating things that make us agape, as he is, as kids would ("Oh wow!" is a reaction you'll have even to just a Smirnoff Vodka commercial he's helmed). With the Letter, we see this in a short film form that is simply no less than stunning. It ranks among Un chien Andalou and La Jetee as being works of inspiration that leap off from anything you'll really expect, ever. It burrows into everyday experience to dig out what makes it tick.

In this case it's more conventional, on paper, than the other two. It's about a kid, a junior photographer, who gets some advice on a girl, to French kiss her since he loves her. And then a dream happens and, as David Lynch would say, "things happened..." Oh this is so gorgeously shot. You want to learn something quick about black and white photography while you're in possession of that "The Work of Michel Gondry" DVD for the music videos, just take a gander at the "normal" scenes. There's an innocence seen even here, with that image of the girl the boy has streaming onto the door. Then, of course, is that dream or fantasy or whatever, with a boy's head transformed into a giant camera.

While I wont say what happens with the boy-meets-girl thing, I will say that it fits in well with the imaginative and dangerous visions that Gondry produces. You might not want to live in this world, and some of it is unnerving, but it's never less than illuminating. We get a full sense of the personal artist while getting a pleasurable amount of creativity. Awesome.