A colleague told him that $2,300 was a cutoff point. Below that, he would find only cramped apartments in bad neighborhoods. It seemed to be true. He saw a few tiny places on the Lower East Side, where the streets felt raucous. "Seamy is the wrong word," Mr. Rahman said, "but you can imagine coming back every night and having to pick your way through punk bars and tattoo shops."

Michel Gondry answers questions about his latest film "Be Kind Rewind" during the Berlin Film Festival