Not even the most loyal fan of the pioneering electronic-music duo, Daft Punk, enjoyed the Chicago screening of “Electroma.”

Written, directed and starring the French duo, the movie chronicles two robots’ quest to become human. And for the about 250 Punk loyalist – some of which won contests, others were fan-club members or waited in line all day anticipating the 11 p.m. start in hopes of getting one of the few leftover seats – the film’s Chicago premiere was nothing short of a tragic disappointment.

But it wasn’t the bizarre plot or the zero dialogue throughout the 74-minute movie that caused the first patron to leave her seat and exit the Metro before the end of the opening sequence. It wasn’t the scene in which the heroes get human-like faces molded out of what appears to be soft-serve ice cream. It wasn’t even the 10-minute clip of them driving through the desert, or the almost 20-minute excerpt that follows of them walking through it. (The portion of the film that reportedly all but cleared the theater during its showing at the Cannes Film Festival).

The bulk of the audience weren’t members of the news media, so the film’s uber-challenging nature was embraced by many. They were type of people who enjoy and claim to understand David Lynch’s “Mulholland Drive,” although that movie makes about as much sense as smothering an apple in kerosene, singing “Happy Birthday” to it and attempting to cut its hair. (In fact, that might be a deleted scene). Yet even these self-righteous intellectuals were reduced from chin strokers to head scratchers by “Electroma.”

Despite all its pretentiousness, the film’s downfall was the music – or rather, the lack there of. The one thing that surely should have been stellar was what ultimately left the most die-hard member of Daft Punk’s army scanning the room to see who was equally as bored.

The problem with the soundtrack of “Electroma” is that it features not one note courtesy of Daft Punk. And while it does contain music by Brian Eno, Todd Rundgren and Curtis Mayfield, getting anyone other than the groundbreaking French pair to supply the score seems like an intentionally obvious oversight. It’s like if The Monkeys supplied the music of “A Hard Days Night,” or if Frankie Valli sung throughout “Viva Las Vegas.” It’s just pointless.

This isn’t the duo’s first attempt at filmmaking, having released 1999′s “D.A.F.T.” and “Interstella 5555″ in 2003. However, in both of those instances the film footage was synchronized with the band’s music, most literally on their first release that was just a collection of music videos. History shows that innovative directors can work magic with Punk songs, such as “Da Funk” (Spike Jonze) and “Around the World” (Michel Gondry).

Standing on the balcony at the historic concert venue, it became blaringly obvious throughout “Electroma” that the pair forgot why they’ve remained in pop culture’s consciousness for more than 15 years. People don’t flock by the thousands to see Daft Punk performances, such as they will do when the duo plays Lollapalooza in two weeks, to watch two guys stand onstage in robot costumes. They flock to those concerts to see two guys in robot costumes making mind-bendingly great music. It’s why James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem comfortably namechecks the pair on the song “Daft Punk is Playing at My House,” or why Kanye West felt the need to seek them out for “Stronger.” It’s why the group’s albums “Discovery” and “Homework” remain two of house music’s biggest successes, both critically and commercially.

And by removing the music, we’re left realizing exactly how important of an element that is to Daft Punk’s relevance. It’s not the outfits. It’s not the history. It’s not the famous friends. It’s the music. Because without it, all that remains is silence – sometimes on display on the big screen for more that 7-minutes chunks during their feature-film disaster.

Fittingly, the two biggest cheers of the night resulted from the only scenes in which the members of Daft Punk supplied the audio – when half the duo blows himself up and the other lights himself on fire, respectively.

Northwest Herald, July 15, 2007