Even when they are full of ideas, some filmmakers can be sometimes a bit 'stingy' when they try to film great thinkers. What happens when an image inventor confronts a creator of concepts? There can be many misunderstandings (maybe due to the language barrier?) and theaters can remain painfully empty. Not long ago, in 'Film Socialism', Jean-Luc Godard filmed Alain Badiou talking in front of an empty theater.It seems that Michel Gondry accepts with great pleasure the emptiness that can sometimes separate images and philosophy on the screen. His film plays with the principle of 'illustration': this funny documentary is made of (often) naive drawings, coming from the discussion between the two men.The viewer will not leave the theater with a manual on 'generative grammar' of the American linguist, MIT star. Instead he will be struck, blown away by the creative explosion of a free filmmaker, an inventor renewing at a rate of a thousand digressions and associations of ideas, with its memorial vein and dream, like in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Science of Sleep (his most romantic period). No wonder that the film is secretly haunted by Chomsky's absolute love for his late wife, Carol. Nonetheless, I found this 'little film' immensely refreshing.

A series of interviews featuring linguist, philosopher and activist Noam Chomsky done in hand-drawn animation.Because of Gondry's accent, and at times because of Chomsky's age, the discussion is a bit difficult to understand, and you have to focus. Interestingly, there is a communication breakdown between Gondry and Chomsky, as well, because of translation and pronunciation issues.The film is part biographical, part about language acquisition. There is no discussion of politics, which is probably good, because it makes this a much more timeless presentation.There is mention of "irreducible complexity", which seemed odd, and then Gondry mentions astrology? He seems to be a bit out of his league at times. At least he was able to get Chomsky to talk about his wife Carol, which has been a sensitive topic.

This film should have come with a prominent warning label. It is more about the unintelligible filmmaker than about Chomsky. It ignores Chomsky's fascinating political persona, other than to allow him to briefly mention that he was in jail several times, without elaboration.Very little of Chomsky comes through, since about 98% of the visuals are animations and hard-to-read hand scrawled subtitles, and the interviewer/filmmaker, who talks a lot, has an cripplingly heavy French accent and badly mispronounces many words to the extent that they can't be comprehended at all. What immense irony -- a film about linguistics made by someone who can't use the language properly, yet insists on putting himself front-and-center, both verbally and visually.Chomsky, one of the towering intellectual giants and political philosophers of our time, deserves much better than this.

While Mr. Gondry's accent took a little getting used to, the effort was well worth it. I applaud Mr. Gondry's creativity in presenting Chomsky's ideas about science and philosophy and the doggedness he exhibited in certain instances in delving into the meaning of Chomsky's notions about how we learn and think. The use of animation transformed what for some may have been a droll lecture into a lively and interesting narrative about philosophy, religion, and of course linguistics. I also applaud Gondry's decision not to focus on Chomsky's radical and divisive political views, which would have only detracted from his views about philosophy, science, linguistics and religion. I recommend the film to anyone who is interested in learning about the type of mind-set necessary to think clearly and originally and to make sense of how the world works.