thehappyspaceman You know what Daft Punk's Electroma felt like? It felt like Daft Punk were making a music video, but wound up with too much footage and instead turned it into a movie.Actually, that's exactly what happened. This movie started out as a music video for Daft Punk's song, "Human After All," but they got a little too ambitious and made it into a movie, and there are some things about it that work. The filming is very artistic; the message is nice, taking a spin on the classic Pinocchio moral of wanting to be human and mixing it with undertones about plastic surgery; the music—when there is any—is nice; and the acting is fairly decent, getting the message through despite the fact that we can't see anyone's face or hear what they're saying. The problem is that when you take a five-minute music video and expand its plot to a feature-length movie, you have to pad it out with extended shots, bizarre editing, and incredibly slow pacing. It definitely would have worked better as a music video, or even as a longer music video at ten minutes. But it's not a complete waste. Thanks to the Internet, fans have made several alternate cuts of Electroma. Many switch out the soundtrack with Daft Punk music to fill in the blank spaces, and there are even some fan visions of what the movie would have looked like in its intended form as a music video for Human After All. If you're going to check out any version of Electroma, watch those versions. I don't know how much of this is bias on my part, seeing how amazing their earlier film Interstella 5555 was and how underwhelming this was as a followup, but I would only recommend this movie if you're a huge fan of art films.

runamokprods A bit pretentious, a bit obvious, overlong, even at 74 minutes (this would have been a brilliant 40 minute short), but still full of arresting images and surprisingly emotional moments. Influenced heavily by Kubrick, Antonioni and most of the great 60s and 70s visualists, this is a wordless film about two robots who want to become human. The action is minimal. The opening drive through the desert alone takes a good 15 minutes. But it's wonderfully shot, and the use of eclectic source music as score (Brian Eno, Curtis Mayfield, etc) is interesting, if sometimes a little too self-conscious or intrusive. I doubt there are more layers to be found on repeated viewings, I think it is what it is: an experimental film more full of image than story or ideas. A 74 minute, interesting rock video.But every time I'd head toward terminally bored, an image or feeling would reel me back in...

FilmFlaneur A universe away from the 70's glam kitsch of Daft Punk's INTERSTELLA 5555 (of which I am also an admirer) ELECTROMA is another work which defies easy categorisation, which one will love or hate with equal fervour. It's also another set in the future. but an entirely different one to the rhythmically paced anime of the previous effort. Two robots set out to be human, amidst the expanse of a mostly uninhabited American hinterland, playing out their destinies in an entirely wordless, sometimes meditative setting. Unlike INTERSTELLA too, there is more silence here while what music there is comes from disparate sources as Brian Eno, Haydn and Allegri. As another reviewer has said : "If Stanley Kubrick, David Lynch and Jean-Luc Godard (with Francois Truffaut in a consultancy role) had been asked to collaborate on a film about androids, this is probably exactly what they would have come up with..." .. to which can be added some influences too from the futuristic sterility of such films as THX1138, as well as perhaps some of the philosophical road moves of the 70's like VANISHING POINT or TWO LANE BLACKTOP, road movies where significant travel by its definition never comes to a conclusion. This while the questioning of what exactly it means to be human is a concern familiar from the works of Philip K Dick. Entirely without dialogue, slow but strangely moving, the experience offered by ELECTROMA is ultimately just as profound as the viewer allows or wants it to be, and some have undoubtedly found it pretentious or tedious. Over its 70 minutes I found it memorable and affecting, a film which simply has to be accepted at its own pace. Without the distractions of dialogue one is forced to concentrate on issues elsewhere, with some striking images and scenes along the way - notably one of a burning robot striding to extinction through the desert, or the sad melting faces, like carnival masks, of those who seek to assume humaness. Whether or not Hero Robots 1 & 2 achieve what they want despite it all is a matter of interpretation as much as the film in which they appear. It's an experiment in its own way, just as much as the group's last was, but once again Daft Punk show just what an achievement off the wall film making offers for the adventurous, at least away from the popularist demands of Hollywood. Were that other musicians so creative on screen. Recommended.

Polaris_DiB 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