Air: Eating Sleeping Waiting and Playing A Film About Air on Tour by Mike Mills Astralwerks DVD You can buy it at Insound.

You're probably wondering, "Why does the world need a documentary about Air, a band that has released two-and-a-half albums, one of which was a soundtrack?"

Let's assume, for the moment, that the world doesn't need a documentary specifically about Air. Let's look at Eating... as a documentary about a randomly-selected band -- not a big band, touring with a huge entourage and surrounded by luxuries, but a medium-sized band with a small-but-loyal fan base.

Tours, the film suggests, are not a constant whirlwind of jet-setting debauchery. They're mostly rather dull. There's a lot of time spent sitting around waiting for something to happen, and often whatever happens isn't terribly interesting either.

Shot in stylish black and white, the documentary is visually striking (particularly on a "matching" iMac DV SE, the only DVD-enabled computer in our offices). Indeed, far more attention has been lavished on stylistic conceits than on giving the film any sort of cohesive narrative structure -- it's a jumble of live footage, interviews and miscellaneous fiddling about in front of the camera, culled from tour dates in London, Paris and New York.

Some of the best moments come from conversations with British, American and French Air fans, who are asked about the group, music in general and various aspects of culture. American fans get an amusing sidelong skewering; one American girl in particular babbles pompously at every opportunity, at one point responding to a question about McDonalds with a self-important "No, we're Vegan." Indeed, while several Americans are quick to criticize McDonalds (mostly due to vegetarian and anti-corporate inclinations), Parisians, whom we'd expect to be pompous, seem far more straightforward, lacking the blunt political agendas of the US kids. Elsewhere, we see another batch of American kids; this bunch is so carefully groomed and posed, and so demographically archetypal, that we're surprised when they don't spout commercial messages.

Later in the film, a number of randomly-selected French-folks-on-the-street are asked about Air, and many admit that they've never heard of the group.

We witness a press day, during which Air's Nicolas and JB endure a series of painful media interviews. If you've ever interviewed a band, or even if you've read many band interviews, you'll honestly feel your skin crawl as one interviewer asks Nicolas and JB, with a straight face, "What are your influences?"

Air play live. Air hang out with Sean Lennon. Air read reviews of Moon Safari from magazines. Air discuss Friends. Air wear a lot of white. Air goof off in green rooms and hotel rooms. Air fiddle around at soundcheck. We don't see them using the lavatory, presumably because Mills couldn't get all of his gear into the bathroom.

Looks good on the iMac...

The success of Eating... naturally depends very strongly upon how much you like Air. And you'd better like them a lot, because one of the things we discover over the course of the documentary is that Nicolas and JB aren't the most interesting guys in the world. They're not overwhelmingly charismatic, or at least they didn't feel like being overwhelmingly charismatic on any of the days that Mills filmed. They don't have a grand message or a unique philosophy. In fact, most of what they say is rather hard to understand if you're not giving the film your absolute attention. Many of the film's audience members and interview subjects come across as more interesting than the band.

The music, on the other hand, is great. "Remember," "Kelly Watch the Stars," "All I Need" and "Sexy Boy" are visited and revisited, in multiple variations. In Mills' crisp black and white, the live performances look utterly gorgeous. Hell, the whole film is a triumph of style and composition, to the point where content is largely secondary. Whatever you say about Mills' ability to create a coherent documentary narrative, he's a dab hand at the picture side of things.

And there's no doubt that you'll come away from Eating... with a greater knowledge of Air. But you still won't be able to explain why you needed a greater knowledge of Air in the first place.

So what else is on the DVD? A complete collection of Air videos, for one thing, and an assortment of Mike Mills' graphics and storyboards, which will probably interest only the mouth-foamingest fans. Make time to watch the menus themselves, too -- they're masterworks of graphics and audio, cycling through intricate animations backed by rare Air remixes. I can honestly say they're among the very best menu screens I've seen, and I've seen my share of menu screens.

The verdict for Eating Sleeping Waiting and Playing? If you're a rabid Air fan -- by which I mean the sort of person who'd bid $50 for a "Sexy Boy" stuffed monkey on E-Bay -- you've probably got it already. If you're a casual fan, there are worse ways you could spend your money, but you might want to borrow or rent it first. For most viewers, one or two times through this will be more than enough.

-- George Zahora