Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
A series of interviews featuring linguist, philosopher and activist Noam Chomsky done in hand-drawn animation.
Michel Gondry's hand-drawn animated documentary is a genuinely singular object — a deeply personal, imperfect, charming attempt to visualize Chomsky's dense ideas through idiosyncratic animation. The novelty is real: no one else would make a documentary this way, with scratchy, dream-like visuals standing in for abstract linguistic and philosophical concepts. The conversation covers rich intellectual territory (language acquisition, innateness, consciousness) but the structure is loose and the ending dissipates without a strong sense of closure. Gondry's animated cinematography is creative but deliberately rough, functioning more as illustration than visual mastery. The 'acting' — really Chomsky's naturalistic, patient presence — is warm and engaging if not dramatic. Overall a niche but memorable work of documentary filmmaking.