Interstella5555 - Film Review

By Manuel A. Melendez

Ask most people who Daft Punk were, and they’re liable to nod their heads or smile profusely. They might even be able to sing a few bars of their biggest hits (“One More Time,” “Around the World,” “Get Lucky”) or note how much they miss them. Indeed, Daft Punk, the French electronic duo composed of Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, stopped making music in February of 2021, approximately twenty-eight years after their landmark debut album, Homework (1997). However, it was their sophomore effort, Discovery (2001), that sent them straight into the stratosphere. Appropriately so for a now iconic release, the visual album of Discovery titled Interstella5555: The 5story of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem (2003) was released in a select number of theaters nationwide for one night only.

The dialogue-free anime, supervised by Japanese manga artist Leiji Matsumoto, acts as a visual companion to Discovery, each track acting as a segue into the following sequence. The story (such as it is) involves keyboardist Octave, guitarist Arpegius, drummer Baryl, and bass player Stella playing to a sold-out crowd on their planet of blue-skinned humanoids. Of course, an evil record mogul, Earl de Darkwood, wants to harvest their music, so he sends a military team to kidnap them and bring them back to Earth. His intent? To market them as The Crescendolls, a consumer-friendly, mass-produced, and lifeless musical enterprise whose sole business is to make money and reap the rewards. Sound familiar? It should, since that has been the predominant satire of the music industry since the music industry began. But not to worry, for a fanboy starman who travels the galaxies in a guitar-shaped spaceship (and it is as cool as it sounds, still) is on the mission to save the day.

But the film was not made to be satirical, at least not directly, and all the essential ingredients of a crowd-pleaser are in the sixty-minute film to keep it from being pedantic or overly preachy. It is predominantly an experience, a journey that is best taken without thinking about what is happening but enjoying that it’s happening at all. Made for about four million dollars, the film never saw a wide release anywhere, and its rare DVDs and Blu-rays are either out of print or wildly overpriced. It’s worth noting that this film is touted as predating the ‘visual album’ trend that Beyoncé began in 2013 with her self-titled album, but that’s not true. Visual albums stem as far back as the release of Diva (1992) by Annie Lennox and The Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night (1964). Something Interstella5555 is prescient about, though, is the advent of social media and celebrity-obsessed culture, itself reaching new heights around the time of the film’s initial release in the early aughts. It’s unfortunate, then, that the film remained little more than a curiosity; clips of it were used for the music videos of the Discovery singles, and it did not grow in esteem or viewership until recently. It’s not surprising since anime has hit a new peak worldwide with the likes of My Hero Academia (2016) and Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba (2019), not to mention the colossal One Piece (1999), all taking vast chunks of the cultural zeitgeist worldwide (and billions of consumer money with it) It helps that Daft Punk has only remained more popular after their last album and their decision to stop making music.

But what about the film itself? Admittedly, the 4K remastering using AI technology leaves something to be desired, its attempt to smoothen the standard video NTSC origins of the film, which was converted to PAL, the traditional video format used by France and most other European countries. The original master could not be used for the remaster, but AI technology reduces some aspects to a waxy, slippery mess devoid of detail or grain. The colors and the sound remain wonderful, and the sequences that remain the strongest in the remastered version, the opening act that features the first three tracks from Discovery and the climax set to “Veridis Quo” (the first Daft Punk track I fell in love with), remain so, losing none of their power or luster. Shockingly for me, one of the weaker moments of the album, “Something About Us,” gained new life in this updated version of the film. It is easily one of my favorite tracks now. This is the power cinema sometimes has to bring to life through images and sound, even when we’re not paying close attention.

As a treat for the fans, after the film was done, the video compilation D.A.F.T.: A Story About Dogs, Androids, Firemen and Tomatoes (2000) was shown (almost) in its entirety. It consists of five music videos for five songs from their debut album, Homework: “Da Funk,” “Around the World,” Burnin’,” “Revolution 909,” and “Fresh,” directed by five auteurs known for their distinctive and creative styles (including Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry). These short vignettes looked to have been remastered alongside the film, exhibiting everything that there was to love about the heyday of the music video in the 1990s. It was a jolt of joy for me as a kid who grew up in that decade. Just when I thought it was time to pack up and head out, one more video was screened, “Infinity Repeating,” an unreleased demo from their final album, Random Access Memories (2013), that saw the light of the day on the tenth-anniversary release of the album in 2023. Watching it, I realized how fitting of a swan song it was visually and musically, a perfect compilation of everything Daft Punk was, is, and will be for their fans.

While I waited a few minutes after the screen finally went completely black, to my surprise, Daft Punk themselves showed up for a brief and silent video where they pointed to the audience and waved goodbye.

So long, gentle robots. It was good to have you while you were here, and your music and vision will remain as long as discos worldwide need your soul and beats. And they will.

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