After crafting the extraordinary coming-of-age drama Goodbye First Love, director Mia Hansen-Løve has returned this fall with Eden. Premiering at TIFF and then stopping by NYFF, the DJ drama follows rise of the French electronic-music boom in the 1990s as it’s based on the real-life story of Hansen-Løve’s brother (and co-writer) Sven. One of the most integral parts of the film is certainly the soundtrack, and today we have the full thing, courtesy of Ty Landis, who has compiled it on Spotify.
With cuts from Daft Punk (who are featured in the film), Jaydee, Frankie Knuckles, Joe Smooth, Rosie Gaines, Jabberwocky, and more, the soundtrack was recently discussed by its director. “I had to change producers twice because they didn’t know how to finance it,” Hansen-Løve said during the festival. “When we were looking for financing, people we were speaking with didn’t even know who Daft Punk were. Then someone was asked to evaluate the music and they said it would cost at least a million and it totally discouraged my producer.”
She adds, “A lot of the people saw it as a tribute to house music, and most of the artists, some famous and some still very underground, all agreed to be paid at the same level, keeping the costs very low. That was the crucial thing. That wasn’t until Daft Punk agreed to give the licence of their music for the same price. if that had not happened, nobody would accept it. If Daft Punk asked for more, everyone would, so we wouldn’t be able to make it.” As we await U.S. distribution news, check out the playlist below, along with the trailer if you missed it:
Synopsis:
Electronic dance music is the rock ‘n’ roll of our time. And the jazz. And the punk. Whichever your frame of reference, EDM calls to mind stories of creative genius and staggering fame — but also of lives lost and abandoned in the night. It’s not easy to capture the texture of this culture on film, but writer-director Mia Hansen-Love has found an ideal approach.
Paul (Félix de Givry) is a teenager in the underground dance music scene of early-nineties Paris. Raves dominate, but he’s drawn to the more soulful rhythms of Chicago’s garage house scene. He and a friend form a DJ duo called — with unfathomable layers of irony — Cheers. Two of their friends form a group with a similarly odd name: Daft Punk. These young artists plunge into the life, building their following one set at a time, dropping out of daytime society to form a community based on the high of the ceaseless beats and bass. There are drugs. There is sex. Paul hooks up with an American in Paris, played by the spirited Greta Gerwig (also appearing at the Festival in The Humbling), but that may be fleeting.
Hansen-Love’s previous films Tout est pardonée, Father of My Children and Goodbye First Loveare, in the deepest sense, relationship films. They focus not on plot points but on glimpses of connection and betrayal that accumulate to form the bigger picture. Eden is her largest canvas to date. Drawing on the story of her own brother Sven, with whom she co-wrote the screenplay, Hansen-Love has created what you could call a low-key epic. Yes, the film captures the rise of dance music in Paris, Chicago, and New York — but via intimate moments in the company of young people who didn’t become Daft Punk. Instead, they gave everything in search of that intoxicating cocktail of euphoria and melancholy so often found in the club.
Eden plays at NYFF and is seeking U.S. distribution.