“With all due respect to Pink Floyd,” cracks Damon Albarn, “We’ve got tunes.”

Such a quote demonstrates the wit and ambition of Gorillaz, the multi-platinum cartoon band consisting of animated quartet 2D, Murdoc, Russel and Noodle. Ceri Levy’s fascinating new documentary serves to demystify the band to some extent and provides welcome insight into their complex musical influences and recording methodology.

How was the filmmaker able to convince this notoriously mysterious group to allow him total access?

“We didn’t start out with the intention of making a documentary. I just ran my camcorder and we all said, ‘If it ends up being useful, great, if not, we won’t use it,” Levy says.

The gambit paid off in spades, Levy capturing the group in a number of highly revealing and humorous situations while they mixed their hit 2005 album Demon Days and took it on the road. The majority of the camera time goes to Damon, formerly of Britpop outfit Blur, and his partner-in-crime Jamie Hewlett, co-creater of the comic book Tank Girl, who serves as animator for the virtual band. The two have a playfully contentious working relationship as they bounce ideas off one another, push each other creatively and play pranks on MTV.

Inside the studio and out, the duo is seen working hard to manage the monster they’ve created, which they reveal they did as an antidote to 'American Idol'-style mainstream entertainment that left them cold. Like mad scientists in the lab, they basically spend their time scheming up new and audacious boundary-pushing concepts to test on an unsuspecting public and hungry media circus.

A rotating cast of characters from all over the musical spectrum is also at their apparent disposal; they’re shown working with Ike Turner, Del the Funkee Homosapien, Dennis Hopper (who narrates the track “Fire Coming Out of a Monkey’s Head), and De La Soul, among others. What to do when a nice Afro-Cuban riff would be the perfect addition to your latest track? Steal a sample? If you’re Gorillaz, why do that when you can fly guitar legend Ibrahim Ferrer (Buena Vista Social Club) into the studio and have him lay down some wax? One great moment occurs during their U.S. tour when, while trying to convince a black children’s choir to sing backup vocals for him, Albarn is confronted about the meaning of one of his lyrics. The female choir leader interprets one song as a celebration of urban violence, and Albarn earnestly explains that the message is actually one of peace. “The whole record’s pacifist,” he tells her, and, moved by his impassioned plea, the two hug and agree to work together in a moment that had the whole theater in Austin applauding.

Their innovative sound and look is coupled with an appropriately daring live show. Gorillaz have toured as 3D holograms and as a more traditional ensemble, but their most common appearance involves the band itself playing while obscured behind a huge movie screen, which flashes clips of animation and samples from various Hollywood tropes and ephemera. Such performing is interesting in its own right but also is reflective of the band’s overall desire to stay out of the spotlight and shift the emphasis to their music, letting it speak for itself. Throughout the film, the group’s disgust with fame, celebrity culture, and the pop idol hype machine bubbles to the surface through a wry comment here, a stinging barb there. The portrait that emerges is one of a collective of like-minded artists who are adept at meme warfare and are having a blast using the toys of our image-driven culture to both critique and enrich it in the very ways they see it as impoverished, both spiritually and imaginatively.

More important clues to the unlocking the band’s playfully obscured ideologies emerge throughout the film, but rather than spoil them for you, suffice to say this doc is a treasury of cool. Bananaz could surely win more converts to the already massive cult of Gorillaz, and current fans are sure to walk away from the film with an even deeper respect for a band that cloaks its social conscience in zombie films and bubble gum.