Rewind & Play (2022)

Two things I can say about this eccentric, arguably found-footage documentary: 1) I don’t know what the intent of director Alain Gomis is, and 2) it comes alive every time Thelonious Monk starts playing the piano, which is not often enough. Rewind & Play is composed of footage shot for a French TV show in 1969 while Monk was touring and playing a date in Paris. I have no idea how much of what was shot that afternoon was left out of this picture. It feels like we’re seeing all of it the way it unspooled when they found it, raw and bloopy, with botched shots and technical problems, multiple takes, an interviewer who is not sure how to approach Monk, and a subject who is having a hard time even understanding some of these questions, let alone why they are being asked. Some on the internet think Gomis is out to show Monk being treated demeaningly. Maybe so, but it looked more like a language barrier than racism to me. It’s true a lot of the questions the interviewer asks are inane and/or awkward—“why did you put your piano in the kitchen?” “do you think you are too avant-garde for Paris?” so forth. This poor guy, last seen stranded at a fondue party in the early ‘70s, is smug, pious, and shallow. But that’s true of most TV celebrities and hosts of talk shows. The guy wants to pretend he’s hip to Monk. Maybe he was. Meanwhile, the picture is at least as instructive on the frustrations of shooting a documentary as it is on Monk. But when they let the piano player rip, which adds up to maybe a third? maybe a half? of the movie, it’s truly a great Thelonious Monk time. No one played the piano like him. It feels childlike but sophisticated, like he’s just picking out random notes up and down the keyboard, but backing it with compelling rhythmic chording as he chops up and purees his melodies. It makes a kind of intuitive mathematical sense and it’s a kick for the duration of his jams. I hope Gomis didn’t leave any of the playing out of this already very short movie, because if he did that’s a shame. It’s the only thing that’s really enjoyable about Rewind & Play.