Last night, I was able to go see Daft Punk and Leiji Matsumoto’s Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem. It’s screening at participating theaters across the country, and while the national date was the 12th, Tampa Bay is lucky enough to have more showings throughout this weekend as well! Here is my take on the 21-year-old film by the founding robots of French house and electronic music.
The hour-long film was written by Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo (the duo that makes up Daft Punk) with Cédric Hervet, directed by Kazuhisa Takenouchi, and supervised by legendary Leiji Matsumoto, the Japanese manga and anime artist also known for works such as Space Battleship Yamato and Galaxy Express 999. Since the movie’s release in May 2003, the artwork and animation have been used for all the music videos of Discovery, Daft Punk’s sophomore album and how I personally came to know the band. When you put the music videos together in the chronological order of the album track listing, it tells the story of an alien band abducted by a human to use them for profit in Earth’s music industry. To me, it perfectly makes sense, as when I listen to Discovery, I feel like I’m immersed in space and taking off into the galaxy, so it’s only right that the setting is extraterrestrial! Plus, the message of greedy music executives using others’ talent for their own profit still rings true today.
This was a rare viewing experience, as it not only was on the big screen, but also uninterrupted without ads and searching for each song’s music video online. There’s no dialogue, so fans are truly able to enjoy the music we’ve come to know and love such as “One More Time” and “Digital Love”, but it’s also a real credit to the storytelling of the creatives involved. Viewers can follow along and know what’s going on through the body language of the characters, how the scenes flowed, and the occasional text. Even my friend who came with me, who knows nothing about Daft Punk, was able to understand the story and appreciate the music as its soundtrack. However, it helped that she was already an anime and sci-fi enthusiast!
Overall, it’s a must see for die-hard fans as well as casual and curious watchers alike, with colorful and bright visuals, a twisted villain to root against, an idealistic ending that we can all get behind, and bonus content to enjoy after the movie. My only concern was that at times, the line work in the animation seemed blurry, almost like AI “enhanced” the art. Turns out I’m not the only one who noticed, because as of this morning, I saw posts from movie goers complaining, with comments on Reddit stating, “Leiji died JUST last year, and they are already painting over his brush strokes with AI!” from user topprock, and “Even watching this trailer on a small phone, you can immediately tell AI was used. The crowd scenes in particular are a dead giveaway” by user Secret_Sunshine. Turns out, according to djmag.com, “As the original film was animated digitally, it’s likely that many of the animation elements no longer exist and could not have [been] re-rendered without recreating them from scratch. Fans have suggested that, in order to save time and money during remastering, the film was run through a machine-learning AI to improve the resolution, but, in doing so, produced imperfect results.”
Despite maybe the mistake of not remastering Interstella 5555 by hand, I personally still think it’s worth the experience, nostalgia, and excellent music, especially since the robots broke up in 2021. To see if there’s a screening near you, go to interstella5555film.com.
Samantha Hval
Program Director WMNF
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