#bloggle

This afternoon I had a really wonderful time schmoozing with my roommate, and eventually the conversation wandered to Daft Punk because she noticed some great memes online after I told her about the end a few days ago. She asked me why I had assured her that “it was okay” that day. (It probably WAS pretty unusual to hear someone say their favorite band being done is an okay thing!) So I told her this: Daft Punk doesn’t do things that go against their hearts, and if they’d wanted to keep going they would have.

Then she pointed out how Daft Punk has always adapted to keep doing what they love, so ending the band now really sticks out as a choice. I’d never thought about that before, and she’s RIGHT! They’ve always found new ways to shake up the music industry in just the right way—they’ve been seemingly a step ahead and yet exactly in-tune with the moment. So eight years after their last album release, with production credits and collaborations in the meanwhile, “Epilogue” does feel intentional as can be.

We don’t know about the circumstances surrounding “Epilogue” and exactly what the end is (hence my hesitancy to call it anything specific: retirement, split, robot divorce, etc.) since they decided not to tell us. We don’t need to know—in fact, it would be VERY RUDE and antithetical to pry—we just need to believe in them.

I asked my roommate if she had any other questions or wanted any context about the video, since most folks might not know about Electroma. She asked why they used scenes from the movie. I gave her my best guess: Daft Punk made the movie a highly open-ended and up-for-interpretation one. They re-used and interpreted those clips to show us two things.

One, the process of making a decision to bring about an end. They included the gradual slowing-down and stopping of the silver-helmeted robot. They could have not included the first quarter of the video and started right when the golden-helmeted robot goes back to the silver one. They made unique cutting decisions for the video that make it different from Electroma. But they didn’t leave that part out.

The silver robot takes off his jacket, maintains direct eye contact with the gold one, gives the slightest nod, then turns around so that the self-destruct switch can be activated. It’s as much of a statement/decision as can be made without words. The gold robot stares at the switch as the camera zooms in: there’s a long moment of dramatic consideration with one last close-up on the silver robot before an eventual recognition. The gold robot activates the switch and enables the silver robot’s decision. With the choice made, the gold robot lets the silver robot go.

Two, the movement forward after the end. In Electroma there’s a whole sequence between the explosion and the walk into the sunrise, but “Epilogue” doesn’t include it. Instead, there’s simply the 1993-2021 title card. The focus is on how the gold robot keeps going, and going, and going. The last quarter of the video is the gold robot walking and the sun rising while a new mix of “Touch” plays.

They tell us, “Hold on, if love is the answer you’re home.” It’s said over and over again. They show us that it is possible to keep moving forward after a devastating decision is made. They show us that the sun will rise again. Isn’t that all we really need to know?

The more time I spend thinking about “Epilogue” and the use of Electroma in relation to the rest of their creative career, the more RIGHT it feels. The last era of Daft Punk is the “Epilogue era” and instead of being defined by a new album or new aesthetic, this era is defined by how we move forward!

Those two guys from Blackbirds:

The three band members of Trilogy (they had matching outfits in their music video clip, I mean, come on):

Daft Punk (as in the post that inspired this one):

Shatterdome crew? The band’s manager and the Earl, of course!

As well as these two cuties from the award ceremony.