Silent, surreal Daft Punk film
Daft Punk's "Electroma" has a pretty simple story: two robots attempt to become human, fail, then wander a desert landscape until they destroy themselves. Thematically, I wouldn't see why it shouldn't be taken at face value, though if you want to get technical about it I suppose it does have some things to say about plastic surgery, alienation, and conformity.This movie's real focus resides, however, on the visuals. It's use of music and it's sense of surrealism, plus the fact that it has such a slight story, lends it to the inevitable comparison to music videos, but even that's not quite getting to the unique way the two directors use music and imagery. For one thing, the movie is shot in video and the movie often jumps or halts while panning, giving a sort of POV from the electronic minds of the protagonists (they are billed simply Hero 1 and Hero 2). Secondly, the soundtrack is just as ready to use environmental noise as it is music to hold the moment.
It could have been shorter. Most of the screen time is spent on the robots walking or driving through the desert landscape, staring at the other robots in the world or just watching the road or dunes. I think in this case Daft Punk were trying to make the movie fit into feature length presentation, though I suppose an argument into the monotony and blankness of the robots mechanical lives isn't unwarranted. The problem, however, is that after several long takes of repeated imagery, one hopes that it'll eventually lead to some form of action.
Still, the imagery is pretty gorgeous, and the middle scenes (involving the modeling, the robot society's reaction, and the abandoned bathroom) are pretty much 100% fascinating. This might be a good movie to see on DVD--watch the landscape traveling until it gets repetitive, then skip to the next scene of action.
--PolarisDiB
score 8/10
Polaris_DiB 10 September 2007
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1728051/35578
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