FEBRUARY 15, 2008 - VOL. 1, ISSUE 2

Daft Punk’s Electroma begins in the desert. We see some still shots of the jagged rockscape, cut to the black Ferrari parked in a canyon, which hero #1 and hero #2 will use to glide across the desert highway. The license plate reads "HUMAN," but our two heroes are instead the now infamous androids donning black motocross suits with “Daft Punk” written across the backs, and silver and gold helmets. Our two heroes will travel to a small town populated entirely with lookalike androids, all performing everyday functions like reading the newspaper or having coffee; here they will undergo their transformation to human, and face the scrutiny of the town.

Most viewers will go into the experience with a synopsis of the plot, not having attended the original Cannes screening, and having instead to seek a low-fi version of it on the internet (Vice Records own the US distribution rights, and they’ve chosen to host limited screenings across the country; I missed Chicago’s only screening to date). This knowledge works both for and against the film. On the one hand, knowing the plot obviously removes much of the initial shock at seeing things like a John Deere tractor operated by an android, or a robot reading a newspaper. We also lose a sense of the film being able to go anywhere, because we know where it’s going. However, in knowing the plot, we get to anticipate its coming to fruition, which actually creates more tension, as opposed to simply wondering when conflict or drama will occur, or what the hell the movie’s about. This can be a blessing for a movie that otherwise gives few clues: no dialogue, very little gesture, no subtitle, a complete lack of facial expression, by any “body” in the movie.

That’s right. In effect, this is a 21st century silent film. If that doesn’t sound like classic French pretentiousness, I’d like to point out that none of the French duo’s music is heard in the film. However, in their defense, if it weren’t for French pretentiousness, who would have thought to pair wine and cheese? The Scots? I think not. Similarly in the film, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo pair several well-chosen songs from other artists with their film, which as a whole creates a cinematic pairing of humor and, well, weirdness that suits the story they tell.

But why make a 21st century silent film? One could argue convenience: Daft Punk’s robots have never spoken, and a silent film was an extension of that. But the two filmmakers are originally musicians, so why not allow the characters to emote musically, or better yet, why not create a magnificent electronic score that speaks for them? I would make the argument that such a move would betray the intentions of the film. Those intentions, I would argue, are to make the viewer feel isolated in their own world, both as an expression of the heroes’ senses of isolation (as robots longing to be human) and as a hypnotic isolation independent from the heroes and their story.

As their car rolls along the empty road, we hear an ominous humming sound, like a generator, and then a voltage sound like a Jacob’s Ladder. The synthesized sounds build up for an upcoming explosion, only to face to the soft electric piano of Todd Rundgren’s “International Feel” accompanying…more driving. In a way that’s difficult to describe, the transition from warped alien synthesized cacophony to the guy who wrote “Hello (It’s Me You’re Looking For)” tickles me, and when the song breaks down back into cacophony, I’m a little weirded out. Subsequently, something about that black Ferrari floating past a John Deere tractor being driven by another silver-headed android does both, tickles me and weirds me out, simultaneously. In these first few events, Daft Punk sets a tone that stays true to the film’s climax.

But wait, for a 21st century silent film, sound sure seems to play an important part. What distinguishes this soundtrack from the average movie soundtrack is its level of expression. Usually a soundtrack is used to enhance the realism of whatever is happening on the screen, from added footsteps to futuristic light saber whooshes. Even a musical score is married to the idea of transmitting the emotions of the character on screen, and it’s often used as a crutch, transparent as its own entity; we always hear the score, but seldom actually listen. However, Daft Punk seems to use the expectation of that to communicate an awful lot to us through sound. Songs are chosen to stand out, and augmented with other expressive sounds to stand out even further.

Music is used later in the film for humor, after hero #1 and #2 undergo their transformation, and we anticipate what they look like as humans. For their unveiling, we hope for the best, following behind the two as they strut along to Curtis Mayfield’s funky “Billy Jack.”

However, this scene also shows the deftness the two have for pacing. We watch the heroes’ backs for a minute or two as our expectations run through our heads. Actually, I hoped to see Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo themselves, playing the human heroes, partly because they haven’t made public appearances as anything but the automatons for years, and I want to see what they look like. And when we finally see them, well, they don’t look really like humans at all, but more like exaggerated mascots for some baseball team called the Humans, with fixed stupid smirks and dark fiberglass wigs. With Mayfield’s ironically pimpin’ song, it’s funny at first, but the scene lingers exactly long enough to decay back into weirdness, and at that moment, the faces begin to melt in the sun, and a stiff blank android mob chases the two heroes into a gas station bathroom dimly lit with flickering fluorescent lights. While the sound is used a bit rebelliously, a bit innovatively, the pacing is simply manipulated with craft.

The same could be said for the camera work. The way the camera floats along in the town as the two first arrive, never letting us linger for too long on one spot, keeps us just outside the world. This would work in any movie—it works so well in Taxi Driver to set up isolation—but in a film in which we essentially watch aliens doing things we take ownership for, mowing the lawn, wearing a tie, getting married, the camera work is icing on the cake.

As the movie begins in the desert, it ends in the desert. However, just as it’s said you can’t step into the same river twice, this desert is markedly different from the desert in the beginning. For a few minutes, we don’t see our heroes at all; the camera favors sweeping shots of the sand dunes. At first it seems superfluous, but this scene proves to be the apex of camera use, as well as the pacing. It starts with the colors. After a while of seeing no skin, and no real skin tones (the color of the “human” heroes is quite off, more the color of silly putty), the sand starts to look very fleshy. Then the curves of the dunes begin to resemble the curves of a reposed woman. As I watched, I wondered in my head whether this was intentional or not (probably the worst insult you can give an artist); but just then, I realized that the shot had switched from the desert to an actual reposed woman, obscured in shadow, but with a tell-tale tuft of pubic hair. We witness the true isolation of the human, and we cannot blame the two for self-destructing in the end.

For a film so bare in its use of sound, image, and pace, the deliberate manipulation of these elements as it’s necessary to express what even its subjects cannot shows quite a range for a pair of first time filmmakers. I would urge film students especially to take a look at this before they decide simply to set up a camera and read off a script. This film shouldn’t be limited to them, though their departure from film conventions probably will. And that’s a shame, because this film shows that film has its own language, and it’s not necessarily English.