Daft Punk Unchained

The documentary describes twenty years of work by two French musicians. Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo began making music in the middle of the nineties and at a certain point decided not to show their faces; they put on helmets and stopped giving interviews. The film takes that decision as its subject: was the concealment a marketing trick or part of how they worked. Hervé Martin-Delpierre directs. The documentary dates from 2015. The pair do not speak in it; the narrative is built through the names around them, and those who talk include musicians and producers who worked with them. Its most concrete side is the accounts of making: the sections on how they worked in the studio, what recordings they sampled and how the helmets were built give direct information. The narrative proceeds chronologically: the first album, the live show design, the film score work and the last album are taken in turn. It was made for French television and rests heavily on archive. Its limit is the absence of its subjects; the narrative runs without their own word and some claims stay indirect. The section on the stage design is the best worked part; how the pyramid setup was built is given in detail. Who it is for: viewers who like the history of electronic music and music documentary. Who it is not for: there is little new information, the structure follows a television shape, and the register is admiring.