Piece by Piece

A documentary that tells a musician's life in toy bricks. The idea is this: Pharrell Williams's life is told entirely in LEGO animation. The interviews are real; everything said comes from recordings, but the people speaking on screen are plastic figures. The narrative starts in Virginia Beach. Pharrell grows up in public housing, joins the school band and meets Chad Hugo there. The two start producing as The Neptunes. What follows is the pop music of the 1990s and 2000s: tracks written for other people, drum patterns everyone knows and a studio always running. The film also describes how he hears sound. Pharrell says sounds appear to him as colour, and the animation shows it directly. Among those speaking are Jay-Z, Snoop Dogg, Gwen Stefani, Justin Timberlake, Busta Rhymes and Kendrick Lamar, all appearing as LEGO figures. Morgan Neville directed; he is known for music documentaries. What is criticised about the form is this: the animation shows difficult matters with the same cheerfulness, which lightens the weight of certain sections. An entertaining production for anyone who likes music documentary and unusual form. For a viewer expecting a serious portrait, the film stays cheerful and does not enter hard questions.