Atlantica - 01.10.2006, Qupperneq 63

AT L A N T I CA 61
Krista Mahr : How did you
get hooked up with the Reykjavík
International Film Festival?
Thomas Bangalter: Somebody
saw our movie at the Cannes Film
Festival and got in touch with our
production company.
KM: Have you been to Iceland
before?
TB: No.
KM: What do you know about it?
TB: That it’s nice and far away.
KM: How was Electroma born?
TB: We (Guy-Manuel de Homem-
Christo is Daft Punk’s other half )
started our production company
– Daft Arts – in 2005 to direct some
music videos and work on different
visual projects. We just felt interest-
ed to work on an experimental film
that would be more like a music
piece for the eyes. We wanted to
make an experimental film that you
don’t need the brain to understand.
It’s not an intellectual experiment.
We really have kind of a physical
approach to sound as texture. Here
it was the same thing. The texture
of the film – the grain, the rocks,
the desert, the paste – is something
quite visceral and primal. It’s how
dance music can be. It can trigger
things, but you don’t really need
to use your brain to understand
anything.
KM: You chose not to use any dia-
logue, so what music do you use?
TB: Everything from Chopin to
‘60s obscure rock tracks. The movie
is pretty much done in an out-of-
context and timeless approach. We
didn’t want to date the movie with
contemporary music today, which
is why we didn’t want to use our
own music. We just put the movie
in an era when you couldn’t really
time it.
KM: What was it shot on?
TB: It’s shot on 35mm. I’ve been
learning for a couple of years but it
was my first experience as a Director
of Photography. Guy-Manuel and I
were really directing it together and
making the choices together. I was
a bit more hands-on on the techni-
cal side. We function pretty much
the same way in the music. I’m a
little bit too close, and he’s a little
bit too far, and we create a balance
like that.
KM: And it debuted at Cannes in
May. How did that go?
TB: It was good. A lot of people
loved it, and a lot of people hated
it. It didn’t leave people not react-
ing. It’s a very open-ended film. It’s
not so much about understanding
as much as whether we were suc-
cessful in sharing some emotions or
sensations with the audience.
KM: What ideas or emotions were
you trying to get at?
TB: It goes beyond language. It’s
part of an entire experience. The
pace is really slow. There are so
many images on television today
and so many things that the brain
doesn’t remember. So our point was
to go out of this circle and work
on a situation that remains in our
heads. A visual memory with a cer-
tain emotion linked to it.
KM: Did you have a Daft Punk
audience in mind while you were mak-
ing it?
TB: We didn’t create it for any
audience. It’s the same with our
music. The concept of an audience
doesn’t exist when we work. It’s a
completely egocentric pleasure that
we’re building on. Beyond sharing
it and presenting it, we have no pre-
tension of trying to reach anyone.
As long as we are happy with the
film and what it stands for.
KM: Where was it filmed?
TB: Everything is shot in various
places in southern California. The
town in the film is Independence,
California, about two and a half
hours north of LA.
KM: This film isn’t the first time
that robots pop up in your body of
work. Why robots?
TB: The robot transformation
happened in 2000. Why the robot?
Why not? The idea is to do things
that haven’t been done before.
Kraftwerk used to play with the
robot image. It’s not completely
new, but we were excited to blur the
line between a reality of a band and
being fictional characters.
KM: Why did you decide to take up
anonymity as a band?
TB: It was purely practical at the
time. It stood in connection with
what we believed in. We weren’t
looking for physical fame. We
thought it would be an attempt to
have a completely normal existence
while still making music. Afterwards,
surprisingly, it became almost a mar-
keting approach. People came to see
it as a trademark of what we’re
doing. It started as something that
would be practical on a personal
level, and became exciting on a pro-
fessional and commercial level.
KM: Where do you get your hel-
mets?
TB: We design them. They used
to use more LEDs and you could
write things on the faces, but there
have been some revisions.
KM: I almost had a mid-life crisis
when I read how young you guys were
when you started Daft Punk in 1993.
You were how old then?
TB: I was 18. Guy-Manuel was
19.
KM: Was Paris’s electronic music
scene pretty young in general, or were
you the babies?
TB: It was not really young, but
it wasn’t really developed either. It
was maybe 15 or 20 people mak-
ing music. Maybe less. But it was
multiplied by thousands in the years
following that. The way we saw it
at that time was music by young
people for young people.
KM: How has your fan base changed
over the years?
TB: That’s a big question I’ve
been asking myself. I don’t real-
ly understand and know who I’m
making music for anymore. We’re
playing at 30,000 or 40,000-person
venues now, and the audience rang-
es from 17-year-olds to 35 or 40-
year-olds. Pop music is one of the
only forms where when you’re 40,
you’re old. You take any other art
form – painters, sculptors, classical
musicians – you can be 50 or 60 and
still be a young creator. There’s a lot
of laws in pop music that we don’t
really like.
KM: Does fictionalizing yourself as
a band help?
TB: This idea of pioneering or
doing things in a certain way keeps
us from being part of the norm
and keeps us experimenting. Maybe
when you keep on experimenting
you stay young.
Thomas Bangalter will be DJing in Reykjavík on October 7. Go to filmfest.is for Electroma screening times, ticket information, and other festival news. The Reykjavík
International Film Festival will be held at various locations throughout Reykjavík from 28 September through 8 October.
“The robot transformation
happened in 2000.
Why the robot?
Why not?”
ICELAND a
050-94ICELANDAtl506 .indd 61 25.8.2006 16:46:22