Ma Maison — Oui Oui

JUL 01 1990 · 12:00

Ma Maison — Oui Oui (1990) Director: Michel Gondry Era: French Indie Pop / Early Music Video Auteurism (1990) - Pre-commercial breakthrough era for Michel Gondry; low-budget French indie pop scene reacting against cold wave austerity, marked by warm analogue aesthetics, handcrafted whimsy, and DIY ingenuity on VHS-era film stock. Exceptionally high. This is one of the earliest surviving directorial works of Michel Gondry — an Academy Award-winning filmmaker and canonical music video auteur — made while he was an active band member. The video's inclusion in The Work of Director Michel Gondry (2003) confirms its own recognised historical significance. As a document of the pre-commercial French indie pop scene, it is irreplaceable. Tier 1 priority for preservation and annotation. Context: Released in 1990, 'Ma Maison' ('My House') emerged from the French indie pop underground at a moment when Oui Oui were consciously reacting against the coldness of French cold wave and the politicisation of rock. The band, formed in 1983, occupied a niche of playful, melodic, art-school pop. The video predates Gondry's commercial breakthrough by three years and documents his proto-surrealist visual language in embryonic form — low budget, handmade, warm, and rhythmically inventive. France's music video ecosystem in 1990 was far removed from the glossy MTV mainstream of the US and UK, allowing for the kind of idiosyncratic, personal filmmaking visible here. The clip's later inclusion in The Work of Director Michel Gondry (2003) retrospectively elevated it to canonical status as the origin point of one of cinema's most distinctive visual voices. Director notes: Directed by Michel Gondry for the track 'Ma Maison' from Oui Oui's 1990 debut album Chacun Tout Le Monde (Just'in label). Gondry was simultaneously the band's drummer and sole video director. The clip was produced by Partizan and released in 1990 in France. It was later included in the 2003 retrospective DVD The Work of Director Michel Gondry, canonising it as an artefact of his formative visual development. This video, along with the clip for 'Les Cailloux', represents Gondry's earliest documented directorial work and the stylistic origin point of his internationally recognised aesthetic — low-budget surrealist warmth, practical in-camera invention, and rhythmically edited montage. Gondry's Oui Oui clips were the direct catalyst for Björk's commissioning of 'Human Behaviour' (1993), the video that launched his international career.