Event

Daft Punk's Electroma

(Thomas Bangalter, Guy-Manuel De Homem-Christo, USA, 2006, 74 min.)

Strange: a music film by two musicians made without their own music.
In its outspoken nakedness and minimal science-fiction style, the
film is also visually strange and intriguing. The small yet skilfully
spun out story is set in a desert-like American highway landscape of
nuclear tests and persistent rumours about UFOs. Two robots would
like to become people. That is the whole drama that unfolded in the
desert landscape.

The two robots in tight leather Daft-Punk suits and
futuristic blindfold helmets are not played by the band members/
directors themselves.The directors previously made two films and also
their own music videos, so they are not entirely detached, yet they
approached the film medium with an unparalleled degree of freedom, be
it consciously or not. Occasionally it is more choreography than
drama, so they do stay fairly close to their own mtier.So no Daft-
Punk Electronics, but a hypnotic mix of Todd Rundgren, Brian Eno,
Sbastien Tellier, Curtis Mayfield, Linda Perhacs, Jackson C. Frank
and Mathieu Tonetti.

The film has already been compared with Gerry by
Gus Van Sant and The Brown Bunny by Vincent Gallo, but that
comparison restricts itself to the painterly lethargy and the
bareness of the landscape. The tone - both in mood as in music - is
literally from another world. If you look at it and hear it that way,
they are light years apart.