Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy?

An animated documentary built on a conversation. Michel Gondry talks to Noam Chomsky. The recordings were made in Chomsky's office, with one camera, in long sessions. Then Gondry draws over the audio by hand. The entire film was drawn on paper and photographed frame by frame; every idea spoken turns into an image. The subject is language. Chomsky describes how children learn it, whether grammar is innate, and how science works. Other things pass through as well. A window, an accident, a death, and Chomsky's memories of his first wife. The title comes from an example about language. A strange question that arises when the structure of a sentence is asked about became the title of the film. What the narrative is interested in is not linguistics but failing to understand: Gondry speaks with a French accent, cannot quite form his questions, and Chomsky sometimes loses patience; the film does not cut that tension, it leaves it in. Gondry discusses this openly. He asks whether his own drawings distort what Chomsky says and admits he does not know. The drawing technique is deliberately rough. The lines shake, the colours run over, and nothing sits still. It runs about eighty minutes. Who it is for: anyone who likes documentaries of ideas and hand-made animation together. Who it is not for: anyone new to the subject; the narrative simplifies nothing and some sections are genuinely hard to follow.