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Director
Michael Gondry is known for directing music videos. He started his career in 1985 by directing short animated films and later created music videos for Oui-Oui and Daft Punk. This is his feature film directing debut.
Review
Bucking the trend of music video directors' first features as brain-dead eye-candy, Michel Gondry's debut Human Nature promises a thought-provoking and comic delving into the fundamental aspects of man's psyche and primal urges.
Scripted by Being John Malkovich writer Charlie Kaufman, the plot follows Darwinian scientist Nathan (Tim Robbins), his female lab assistant and his girlfriend Lila (Patricia Arquette) as they embark on an obsessive search into the roots of behavioural science. The three are thrown into turmoil when they find an actual human subject who was born and grew up in the wild. The wild man (Rhys Ifans) is brought into this microcosm of society and finds himself torn between Nathan and Lila. Nathan wants to train him in the ways of 21st-century living , but Lila is trying to preserve his natural simian background, because she feels her boyfriend's actions are a perversion of the natural order. What ensues is an engrossing yet lighthearted take on the strange juxtaposition of the civilised versus the perceived savage in the struggle for truth.
Fine Line president Mark Ordesky enthuses: "The creative collaboration of Michel, Charlie, Spike (Jonze, producer), and Good Machine was simply irresistible. The script has so many fans in the company, and the casting is so perfect, we feel extremely fortunate to have landed the film." Says Charlie Kaufman,"It's a comedy but it's sad. It's about people who are not accepted."
(Source)