Globetrotting

After watching the 'Science of Sleep', directed by Michel Gondry, I was immediately reminded of my favourite music video of all time: Daft Punk's 'Around the World'. This video has everything on my check list for video do's, which includes: neon lights, bizarre dance number, kitchy costumes and an amazing beat. I also remember watching this video as a child, and it is truly a 'testament to awesome' by still arousing feelings of pure wonderment.
While this video has always intrigued me, I decided that there must be a deeper meaning aside from the glowing dance sequence. What was Gondry's creative process for conceiving the video? By rewatching the video with an open mind, this enabled me to break the video down into it's core components. The first thing that caught my attention was the minimalist chorus of 'around the world'. This repetition seemed to control the colourful cast of characters. These individuals moved like defiant wind up dolls, each dancing to their own synthetic beat.
Since the beat seemed to create a sense of unity, the costume choice was next for evaluation. I've never encountered martians, mummy's, or swimsuit models in my day to day life and I don't think they're necessarily any cultural staple. Maybe this is the point. By celebrating the eccentric we can move beyond the physical and instead become tuned into the spirit of our world. The chorus almost becomes a tribal chant of occult ecstacy, elevating everyone beyond their day to day appearances to instead release our inner sense of self. He has created a sphere of joy; an electric merry-go-round of perfect rhythm and harmony.
With my interpretation in mind, I decided to find Gondry's vision for the video.
Gondry's microcosm of weird was quite different from my interpretation. His initial inspiration was taken from the simplistic beat, where he had a vision of a man climbing a set of stairs. This image alone reminded me of a quote from Picasso "If it occurred to man to create his own images, it's because he discovered them all around him, almost formed already within the grasp" (Fletcher, 160). The ideas are already there, just waiting to be sculpted, which in Gondry's case involves a serious mound of playdough.
The enthusiasm inspired by the music translates to his characters who were each representations of the songs core beats, where "androids represent the singing robot voice; the physicality and small-minded rapidity of the athletes symbolizes the ascending/descending bass guitar; the femininity of the disco girls represents the high-pitched keyboard; the "itchy" skeletons serve for the guitars; the mummies represent the drum machine" (milkandcookies). Gondry's visual representation doesn't seem to reference any culture, or any firm grasp of reality. Rather, his work seems to represent the imagined possibilities that can be nurtured from even the simplest of images. It seems to be that the oddities make the world go round.

Source:
1.http://www.milkandcookies.com/link/94624/detail/
2.Fletcher, Alan. "The Art of Looking Sideways". Phaidon. 160.
Video: www.kewego.com/video/iLyROoaft8cw.html