Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind

Inside The Mind of Michel Gondry is an entertaining look into the weird world of the eccentric French director - a "visual genius", according to Kate Winslet. There's a fair amount of backslapping in the early comments from cast and crew, with everyone agreeing with Winslet, but the man himself takes it all with a liberal pinch of salt, declaring in his almost impenetrable French accent that "my trick is that I have no confidence at all. I always assume it will be a disaster."

Despite the self-deprecation, Gondry does appear to have a unique approach to filmmaking. His biggest challenge, he says, was trying to find a way to make the "transitions" work - those moments in the film where Jim Carrey's character, Joel, begins to "lose" his memories of Kate Winslet's Clementine. Gondry preferred to do as much as possible "in camera", coming up with ever more ingenious ways to shoot scenes that other directors would prefer to leave to post-production special effects. We see a scene in which Joel and Clementine are walking down a street and Clementine begins to fade into the background as Joel's memory of her starts to blur. What we, the viewer, don't see is the simplicity of how it's done - as the camera pans out we see two grips holding up a pane of frosted glass that has been strategically placed between Winslet and Carrey.

The Anatomy of a Scene dissects the pivotal scene towards the end of the film when Clementine leaves Joel. It's more testimony to Gondry's inventiveness, but sometimes the Frenchman's eccentricity left everyone else scratching their heads. "The scene was constructed in Michel's head and I don't think any of us totally understood what he was doing," admits producer Anthony Bregman. "I don't even know if he knew," adds co-producer Steve Golin.

The Conversation With Winslet and Gondry is a laid-back chat between the actor and director that offers little in the way of blinding insight but is enjoyable nonetheless, with Kate making fun of Gondry's "Frenglish". It's all good-humoured, though, and Winslet makes no secret of her admiration for the director and her surprise at landing the role in the first place. "It's so far removed from all the period films I've done," she tells him. "Clementine is nothing like any of the characters I've played before, so I almost fainted to think that there was some crazy director who was prepared to take this big old risk on 'classical Kate'".

Gondry looks a tad uncomfortable with the conversation format - it's supposed to be a chill-out on the sofa but he seems unsure whether to talk to Winslet or to the camera - but he does give some insight into his working method, which amounts to having no method at all. "I was not in control of this," he says. "I wanted everyone to be lost."

To which Winslet replies, "Michael, trust me, everyone was as lost, if not more lost, than you."