A follow-up to 2011′s Goodbye First Love, Mia Hansen-Løve returns to the New York Film Festival with clubbing drama Eden, which traces the history of the French electronic music scene over two decades, from 1992 to 2013, as experienced by aspiring DJ Paul (Félix de Givry). Charting the career path of the filmmaker’s brother Sven—he co-wrote the film—Eden jumps right into the ’90s illicit rave scene where parties weren’t held in glossy bottle service clubs, but in basement dives, warehouses and, as the film’s opening scene depicts, inside an abandoned submarine. It’s here that Paul first encounters garage, the seminal strain of diva-infused dance music that emanated across the globe from Larry Levan’s Paradise Garage in New York City.
Stuck with the bug, Paul forms a DJ duo called Cheers with cohort Stan (Hugo Conzelmann) and starts promoting his own parties, slowly climbing up the ranks while the two sustain each other with music and its attendant lifestyle—travel, diatribe and railroad lines of cocaine. Meanwhile, two of Paul’s fellow mixers, Thomas and Guy-Man (Vincent Lacoste and Arnaud Azoulay), start staging their own gigs under the Daft Punk moniker. (If they’re ever jealous of the notice Daft Punk’s getting, they never let it show.) Once we arrive at the late ’90s, Paul’s depleting funds deform his life of excess and his youthful exuberance begins to slip through his shaky fingers. Greta Gerwig, Brady Corbet, and legendary house figures La India and Tony Humphries also star.
Check him out in action below and stay tuned for our in-depth interview with de Givry closer to the film’s spring 2015 Stateside release.
