Eden is such a delicately strung film – filled with
heartbreaking fragility – that it’s easy to overlook the fact that it’s also a
deceptively ambitious work, be it in its bold temporal scope and multiple thematic
interests or its absorbing slew of diverse tonal and emotional hues. These
aspects, along with the intimate nature of its narrative – being a
semi-fictionalized memoir of director Mia Hansen-Løve’s brother and co-writer
Sven –, juxtaposed against a fascinating milieu – viz. the rise and decline of
house and garage music in France – made this an entrancing film and an
enthralling watch. The movie, therefore, was both epic and personal, and its
mood palette traversed between “euphoria and melancholia”, as it portrayed the
journey of Paul (Félix de Givry) – from a university student hoping to be a
writer who’s swept away by the tidal wave by the Parisian underground musical
circuit during the early 90s; to forming one half of a successful DJ duo around
the same time as Daft Punk also formed, to playing gigs and hosting shows both
in clubs and on the radio in Paris and even travelling to New York and Chicago
over the 90s and the 2000s; to becoming engulfed by debts and addiction to the
point of having to hit a hard reset in his life in the early 2010s. Givry was
quietly affecting in the role of the protagonist, as were Pauline Étienne as
his dazzling and vulnerable girlfriend who eventually moves on, Roman Kolinka
as a brilliant but troubled graphic artist, Vincent Macaigne as an on-off
buddy, etc. Both the soundtrack and the photography were simultaneously
fabulous and low-key, in keeping with Løve’s magnificent and distinctive
directorial signature.
Director: Mia Hansen-Love
Genre: Drama/Musical/Romance
Language: French
Country: France
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