As a sort of document of Daft Punk's musical universe, Interstella 5555 provides more than adequate fodder for some thoughts about identity. The heroes obviously stand in for Daft Punk (besides performing Daft Punk songs, the end of the movie sees the camera slowly zoom out from a close-up of a "One More Time" record playing). Daft Punk's views on pretty much everything are thus revealed to us:
5. Daft Punk does it for the music and for the fans. Besides the guitar-glorification of most of Daft Punk's music the blue-skinned band featured in the movie has not one but two guitars. Their music, which is in some ways a celebration of pop culture throughout the ages (guess the origins of the samples in this, for example), is a kind of mélange of international past and present.
5. Daft Punk is international. The band in the movie begins by playing to a crowd of people inhabiting a planet entirely composed of blue-skinned people. Their unity is destroyed when they are transformed (on Earth) into a band composed of some white guys and some black guys. On Earth as well as on blue-planet, though, their popularity goes beyond race and nationality.
5. Daft Punk is also nationalist/sectionalist. The band in the movie urgently wishes to return to their home planet (country?). The end message of the movie seems to condemn meddling in the affairs of others.
5. Music will transform the world and bring peace. The loyal fan (who dies to save his band) flies around in a sort of spaceship guitar, bringing peace to our band and freeing the innocent. The unity in the crowd in the opening scene of the movie is mirrored by the unified gyrations of the crowd at the end.
It might also be worthy of note that Interstella 5555 was a thoroughly international venture, composed half by the French Daft Punk and half by the Japanese animator/director Takenouchi.
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