Eden (Mia Hansen-Løve, 2014): France, United States.

Reviewed by Vanessa Rason. Viewed at the AFI film fest.

Good  film from the new director, Mia Hanson Love. chronicling the life of French DJ, Paul ( Felix Givey)  and friends who introduced garage stye of music to european people. The film is somewhat flat, following Paul around from club to club and features a lot of dancing, partying and watching Paul take drugs, which later turns into feeding his cocaine addiction. We watch Paul go into extreme debt even with his growing success and getting to meet Daft Punk. His addiction and focus on women and dating sort of differs him from promoting himself as a business man and becoming more succsessful in his career.  Although entertaining, artistic and technically good film, there lacks a more centered plot and theme. The artistic Director, who was present at the films second screening , mentioned trouble with shifting and changing producers which delayed and sometimes halted filming on three separate  occasions. This can be seen in the film by what seem like subtle cuts  and shifts in the core of the films nature and quality , or  changes in direction. Other changes are  in the appearances of some key characters such as hair length and color change  that happen on screen before our eyes. The time difference in the chronological pot of the film allowed for such changes, making the appearance differences an enhancement of authenticity to the films storyline. Overal the film was entertaining but could have definitely been edited shorter with cuts in many of the ongoing club scenes , which after a while began to blend with one another creating the feeling of one long party. The highlight of the film is the fun music with cuts from Daft Punk (who are featured in the film), Jaydee, Frankie Knucklesad other various DJs which plays throughout the movie.