Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar system (Daft Punk and Toei Animation)

Alternatively titled Interstella 5555 or That Daft Punk Movie, Interstella 5555 is a Japanese-French animated adventure musical film that was originally released on May 28th, 2003. Being an animated visualization of French electronic music duo Daft Punk's album Discovery, the film has no dialogue and has very limited sound effects (Hence why I felt that this would be a good example to look up on due it's stronger focus on music instead of dialogue or realistic sound effects, it is not very often for opening or closing titles to have any sort of dialogue in them).

Looking good guys!

At the very start of the film, the logo for Toei Animation is shown, as well as grainy footage of what looks like a press conference with Leiji Matsumoto and Daft Punk, where Matsumoto then states that musical collaboration such as this had always been a dream of his. It is unknown however whether this press conference actually took place as there is no original recording available anywhere of the entire conference...

… yup, that's it.

… there isn't necessarily a proper title sequence at the beginning (The title and studios involved are displayed very plainly in between the grainy footages as shown above, which probably makes the very beginning rather forgettable if it wasn't for the curious live recording..), from then on however where we are allowed to travel through a star gate sequence of sorts before a glowing outline of a guitar comes into view, shooting into the distance like a star before a ship appears… and sets course for the harmonious home planet of our main characters, which leads to this opening scene and perhaps one of the film's (Or album's) most well known songs:

The story focuses on the abduction and rescue of a blue skinned alien pop band (Also better known as the Crescendolls, a name given to them by the villain), being brainwashed to do the bidding of a power hungry human disguised as their manager, they are soon enough rescued by one of their own, who unfortunately gets fatally wounded during a dangerous escape from the villain, sadly dying soon after, the Crescendolls are on their own as they attempt to find a way back to their home planet.

While its art style might remind one of a typical 80s anime, it works surprisingly well with the songs. Considering the year it was released in, it has a very retro look to it (Though I have seen other french produced animations that are still using this style in the present).

Some criticism I do have about the art style (As lovely as it is) used is that the outlines of the characters during close ups are distractingly thick at times, and does take away from the decent animation quality, it might work for a graphic novel version (Which pretty much then loses the whole point of this film (Errm…)), but not here.

While I do like the character designs, I still felt that most of them just looked much too similar to one another in terms of their facial features and body structure, to me I only felt that there were only two design templates used for all of the characters, one would be the tall and considerably attractive characters, while the ones are these really out of place (Almost dwarfish) characters with simplified facial features. 

I actually felt that they were a little afraid in trying out more unique expressions for the characters (Particularly Stella, as much as I love her), in fear that they would look unattractive if they did so (With the exception of the more dwarfish looking characters, and I still think they could do a better job for them as well).

I did however find that the song syncing was pretty well done (Well it better be!), and when it seems like the characters are practically singing out the song that plays (Such as the beginning scene), the lip syncing is also done quite well (As well as the instrument syncing), the body language that goes with it is fantastic as well.

I was definitely one of many that fell victim to the emotional scenes that begin to take place halfway through the film, initially I had listened to Something About Us numerous times before watching this film… while the song alone had already drowned me in a sea of feels… apparently the scene that went with it was far worse than what I had prepared myself for (I thought Stella was just going to reject him! Not this!). And then there's Voyager... a bittersweet song that in a way signifies it's listeners to continue celebrating life and not mourn the loss of it.

HELP.

That's it, I'm done, I hate everything.

And that was what I found so particularly wonderful about this film, without the use of any dialogue whatsoever, Interstella 5555 was still able to evoke some pretty strong emotions.

I absolutely loved the colors that are used for this animation, from the very start to finish, the dreamy effect was definitely achieved (How is it possible that they were able to create a palette that seems both vibrant and soft? Stop making me contradict myself you beautiful film!), there was also however a sense of psychedelia added to it all (Though I am also well aware that they are simply trying to follow the color palettes seen and used in galaxy photos and art). Most of the time, despite how sad a scene might be, you still find yourself weirdly at peace while watching it.

And I can't possibly forget about how well choreographed each scene actually was (High Life was especially one of my favorites when it came to the film's more dynamic scenes), there were so many different camera angles and movements, compositions that they would use to prevent this from ever being a dull film (I mean if by some rare chance the music is not to your taste, at least you can still enjoy the beautifully designed scenes), the zoom ins, rotations 

The narrative progression and structure of the film is also quite interesting, seeing as the story doesn't actually end once the villain dies, or when the supposed protagonist himself is killed in action, no, it still carries on despite all of that. The film instead focuses on the entirety of the band's adventure from start to finish, even showing that despite the painful loss of Shep, they carry on to find a way back home as well as stop the villain that had caused all of this in the first place.

I believe that this is one of very few animations where the human race is actually portrayed in a more positive light, with the exception of the villain, the rest of the humans were more than happy to aid the Crescendolls in getting them back home upon their big reveal (When we all probably expected them to instead keep them captive and experiment on them, which has happened so often…). 

I actually felt that universal harmony was one of the central themes that was focused on in this film, the Crescendolls' race were shown to be an absolutely prosperous one (Their world a utopia of sorts) with music especially bringing them all closer together. It was a breath of fresh air that the humans were not so different…

...

… Did they just start some franchise in honor of them?

… YEURGH!

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