Interstella 5555
***
Cinema
Review - December 13, 2003
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate PG. Japan.
68 minutes. Directed by Kazuhisa Takenouchi. Written by Daft Punk, Thomas
Bangalter, Guy-Manuel De Homem-Christo, Cédric Hervet. Produced by
Thomas Bangalter, Guy-Manuel De Homem-Christo. An animated film with the
music of Daft Punk.
A drab Thursday. On my own. In an empty cinema,
except for the two behind me that came in a few minutes late. This is not
the best situation in which to see "Interstella 5555", which
probably needs a lot of intoxicants and an atmosphere of communal head-nodding.
I picture it showing on the big screen at a festival when all the bands have
packed up, and boozy campers are bonding in their thousands just by sitting
on the dewy grass and gazing up in fond appreciation.
The movie has no dialogue, save for a few lines
right at the start. It's a Japanese anime, awash in the vibrant colours of
disco beams and kept going by the music of Daft Punk. I like Daft Punk. They
can be annoying, but usually they're not. They're the French outfit that
gave us "One More Time", "Music Sounds Better with You" and "Around the World".
Yes, "Around the World" is the song whose video had a bunch of guys in space
visors walking around a globe for five minutes while the lyrics went, "Around
the world, around the world! Around the world, around the world!" The style
has been described as pop-rock acid-house techno. I simply call it catchy
electronica. But, ya know -- tomato, tomatoe.
We open with a scary-looking Japanese man telling
us he once had a dream. Then some swirly stars rush into the foreground,
and then we're in the dreamworld, where an intergalactic utopia is led by
a blue-skinned band playing "One More Time". The musicians are disrupted
by soldiers with laser guns. They kidnap them, take them to a big corporate
tower and remodel them into pop-tart cutie-pies. Next thing you know, they're
called The Crescendolls, are being lapped up in record stores by vacant-eyed
kids and find themselves winning awards in shiny showbiz gatherings that
smell of expensive perfume and stink of pointless vanity.
The full title is "Interstella 5555: The 5tory
of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem". I am thankful that the symbolism is so obvious.
We can reassure ourselves that we understood how the movie was about the
way publicity machines make bland the raw talents of artists, cynically exploit
them for empty success and toss them out onto the sidewalk when the smoke
and mirrors have had their fifteen minutes. When watching the piece, it ain't
amazingly clear -- we think we get the general gist, all right, but "5555"
is less about storytelling than spectacle. Figures in cool colours dance
about the place or get into space-agey fights, or stand and sing Daft Punk
tunes... and in the empty cinema on the drab little Thursday, it's easy to
appreciate it but just as easy to let our attention drift.
But I think that's okay. This is a film you go
to for the pretty pictures, for the neon and the quirky shapes, for the mix
of 80s retro style with the fashions of today. And for the music of Daft
Punk. It isn't special enough to be a great cinematic experience, but I respected
it as a curio. It won't make me go out and do detailed research on the history
of Daft Punk, and the way the patterns of their videos have been building
this story. But I'll be quicker to remember and buy the greatest hits album.
Or let someone download it for me. Not that I approve of that sort of
thing.
COPYRIGHT©
2003 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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