Los Angeles (AFP)

What do Les Rita Mitsouko, Neil Gaiman, Beck, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Marion Cotillard have in common?

Answer: The Sparks, cult musical duo, at the heart of an Edgar Wright documentary premiered on Saturday at the Sundance Film Festival.

Wright, like other aficionados of the American tandem, believes that the eccentric Mael brothers have had a unique influence on pop music for the past fifty years, with their poetic lyrics, their strange vocalizations and a constant questioning.

Taking advantage of the momentum of the success of "Baby Driver", selected for the Oscars, the British director has gathered other celebrities for a project close to his heart, "The Sparks Brothers", which follows the two brothers through the ups and downs of their careers.

"It was pretty easy. Sparks fans are like evangelists: they want to tell others how much they love the Sparks," the director of "Shaun of the Dead" told AFP.

“The Sparks are one of those bands that make people want to make art and make music,” Wright insists.

The feature film explores how a "glam rock anomaly" met with resounding success in 1970s England and topped the number one spot in French sales a decade later before storming California radio with synthetic pop.

The Sparks also left their mark on German nightclub dance floors in the 1990s, were emulated by Paul McCartney himself, and wrote a film due for release, starring Marion Cotillard and Adam Driver.

- "Without compromise" -

As the documentary shows, Ron and Russell Mael never really sought popular success, striving to constantly reinvent their sound while staying "out of the way ... as people and as musicians."

"Neil Gaiman? Never in our life we ​​would have thought about it," says Russell, shocked by discovering the myriad of famous fans, like the British author, who testify in the film.

"And Flea ... We would never have suspected that someone with a character as assertive as him, stylistically also with the Red Hot Chili Peppers, would love the band," he adds.

The brothers had already flirted with Hollywood during a manga film project to be directed by Tim Burton, before he retired.

Most recently, the Sparks have worked with rock band Franz Ferdinand, performed all of their albums in a row at a 21-night residency in London, and designed a radio show around Ingmar Bergman.

From now on, the Mael brothers are returning to the cinema.

Besides Edgar Wright's documentary, they also wrote the musical film "Annette" for the French director Leos Carax ("Les Amants du Pont-Neuf").

"A rather special and uncompromising film," warns Russell.

In "The Sparks Brothers", Wright mixes interviews and archival footage, concert scenes and cartoons to retrace key moments in the duo's career in the humorous tone that characterizes them.

The director's mission with his film is to develop the Sparks fan base.

Its success will depend a lot on the distributors who will be seduced during its presentation at Sundance, the largest independent film festival in the United States, which takes place virtually this year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

A pandemic which has also caused the postponement to October 2021 of the release of Wright's next fiction, "Last Night in Soho" with Anya Taylor-Joy ("The Queen's Gambit"), in the hope that theaters will have could reopen by then.

© 2021 AFP