Blank Film

Kraftwerk's distant cousin, French mecho-organic duo Daft Punk, wishes you were here, and by "here," we mean stoned within the panel-by-panel staging of a Pink Floyd album's gatefold cover. At least that's what the group seems to want with its "psychedelic odyssey" Electroma, a dialogue-free slow pan through the deserts of the Southwest and the pervasive emptiness of a robotic existence. The film could be a statement about suburbia's blankness, a commentary on accepting those different from us, or a judgment against allowing the flames of desire to engulf you. What's for certain is it contains the least frenzied chase scene ever, and a vaginal landscape shot that would make Georgia O'Keeffe proud.

Contrasting gloss with grit, the film has similarities to the work of Gus Van Sant and Michelangelo Antonioni, as well as music from Chopin, Brian Eno, and Curtis Mayfield, among others (though no Daft Punk). The main characters' pregnant pauses birth an eerie sense of isolation that lingers in the viewer. Helping relieve pressure from this hyperbaric chamber of a film are after-screening performances by Riot in Belgium, the Gang Bang DJs, Dandi Wind, Richie Panic, and Jefrodisiac. Thy robofunk cup runneth over.
Mon., Aug. 20, 7 p.m.