Chris Knipp
06-18-2015, 12:39 AM
[This review originally appeared as part of Filmleaf's NYFF 2014 coverage.]
Mia Hansen-Løve: Eden (2014)
http://www.chrisknipp.com/nyff2014/EDEN.jpg
FÉLIX DE GIVRY IN EDEN
Drugs, women, and song: a subtle hymn to rave music that's a bit too much
Mia Hansen-Løve’s fourth feature, technically her most ambitious yet, takes her pursuit of the personal a bit far in its beautiful but exhaustive and incident-and-character-rich but major-plot-poor decade-plus saga of her brother (and co-scripter) Sven's experience (he's called Paul here and played by Félix de Givry) as a pioneer DJ of the Paris rave scene, specializing in Garage music. Paul and his friends, including Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter (otherwise known as Daft Punk) are riding a dream of ecstasy (and for a while at least also the drug by that name) in their pursuit of the DJ life. Eventually as the Nineties meld into the 2000's and beyond, Paul, whose girlfriends are too numerous to keep track of (an early one is played by Greta Gerwig), begins to question if he wants to spend his life as a DJ. He also has developed a decade-long problem with cocaine, and encounters financial problems with unprofitable bands and clubs so his mother's checks and his trust fund administrators' generosities dry up. Along the way there are trips to New York and Chicago and visiting black singers who demand suites in five-star hotels and changes in musical tastes.
It's all in a gorgeous gray haze in the widescreen photography of Denis Lenoir: visually this film is a pleasure from first to last and right at the end there are some scenes of poetic beauty. Hansen-Løve is always a class act, and she and her brother show a full awareness that the world they are remembering was a feast (as well as an overdose) for the senses. Even the intertitles are pretty and tasteful. But she might have been too close to the story of her brother's experience to envision a fully independent film here that might have soared off on its own or had a simpler, more defined narrative shape. Recommended mostly for fans of discotheques and raves and the kind of music they offer.
The taste includes a certain restraint in the sound: we don't get our brains damaged or our ears blasted. Not that Hansen-Love's DJ world isn't complex and subtle in its awareness of contradicitons: as the Guardian's (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/sep/06/eden-review-heaven-is-midnight-in-paris-dancing-to-electronica) Paul McInnes says, "Glamour is twinned with mundanity, beauty with boorishness and friendship with selfishness, while artistic endeavour is undercut by self-indulgence." But I longed to see Whit Stillman's The Last Days of Disco again. For me, though Hansen-Løve’s 2007 first film All Is Forgiven is precocious and elegant, her 2011 memory of teen romance Goodbye First Love/Un amour de jeunesse is poetic and lovely, her 2009 Father of My Children/Le père de mes enfants remains her finest, richest film. Critics seem impressed by the complexity of Eden though, and it has gotten raves. This does not detract from the director's luster as among the most gifted of the young French directors.
Eden, 131 mins., debuted at Toronto, with big festival showings including San Sebastian, Busan, and London. Screened for this review as part of the 52nd New York Film Festival (its US premiere). It opened in French cinemas 19 November 2014 to a fair critical reception (AlloCiné presds rating 3.1). Les Inrocks was very admiring, Cahiers disparaging.
Limited US theatrical release begins 19 June 2015.
(For my full coverage of the 2014 NYFF see also FILMLEAF (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3800-New-York-Film-Festival-2014&p=32593#post32593).)
http://www.chrisknipp.com/nyff2014/mhl.jpg
STILL SHOWING FILM LOOK, FORMAT; THIS FACE IS HANSEN-LØVE IN RIGHT FOREGROUND
Mia Hansen-Løve: Eden (2014)
http://www.chrisknipp.com/nyff2014/EDEN.jpg
FÉLIX DE GIVRY IN EDEN
Drugs, women, and song: a subtle hymn to rave music that's a bit too much
Mia Hansen-Løve’s fourth feature, technically her most ambitious yet, takes her pursuit of the personal a bit far in its beautiful but exhaustive and incident-and-character-rich but major-plot-poor decade-plus saga of her brother (and co-scripter) Sven's experience (he's called Paul here and played by Félix de Givry) as a pioneer DJ of the Paris rave scene, specializing in Garage music. Paul and his friends, including Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter (otherwise known as Daft Punk) are riding a dream of ecstasy (and for a while at least also the drug by that name) in their pursuit of the DJ life. Eventually as the Nineties meld into the 2000's and beyond, Paul, whose girlfriends are too numerous to keep track of (an early one is played by Greta Gerwig), begins to question if he wants to spend his life as a DJ. He also has developed a decade-long problem with cocaine, and encounters financial problems with unprofitable bands and clubs so his mother's checks and his trust fund administrators' generosities dry up. Along the way there are trips to New York and Chicago and visiting black singers who demand suites in five-star hotels and changes in musical tastes.
It's all in a gorgeous gray haze in the widescreen photography of Denis Lenoir: visually this film is a pleasure from first to last and right at the end there are some scenes of poetic beauty. Hansen-Løve is always a class act, and she and her brother show a full awareness that the world they are remembering was a feast (as well as an overdose) for the senses. Even the intertitles are pretty and tasteful. But she might have been too close to the story of her brother's experience to envision a fully independent film here that might have soared off on its own or had a simpler, more defined narrative shape. Recommended mostly for fans of discotheques and raves and the kind of music they offer.
The taste includes a certain restraint in the sound: we don't get our brains damaged or our ears blasted. Not that Hansen-Love's DJ world isn't complex and subtle in its awareness of contradicitons: as the Guardian's (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/sep/06/eden-review-heaven-is-midnight-in-paris-dancing-to-electronica) Paul McInnes says, "Glamour is twinned with mundanity, beauty with boorishness and friendship with selfishness, while artistic endeavour is undercut by self-indulgence." But I longed to see Whit Stillman's The Last Days of Disco again. For me, though Hansen-Løve’s 2007 first film All Is Forgiven is precocious and elegant, her 2011 memory of teen romance Goodbye First Love/Un amour de jeunesse is poetic and lovely, her 2009 Father of My Children/Le père de mes enfants remains her finest, richest film. Critics seem impressed by the complexity of Eden though, and it has gotten raves. This does not detract from the director's luster as among the most gifted of the young French directors.
Eden, 131 mins., debuted at Toronto, with big festival showings including San Sebastian, Busan, and London. Screened for this review as part of the 52nd New York Film Festival (its US premiere). It opened in French cinemas 19 November 2014 to a fair critical reception (AlloCiné presds rating 3.1). Les Inrocks was very admiring, Cahiers disparaging.
Limited US theatrical release begins 19 June 2015.
(For my full coverage of the 2014 NYFF see also FILMLEAF (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3800-New-York-Film-Festival-2014&p=32593#post32593).)
http://www.chrisknipp.com/nyff2014/mhl.jpg
STILL SHOWING FILM LOOK, FORMAT; THIS FACE IS HANSEN-LØVE IN RIGHT FOREGROUND