There's a moment in Eden, the new award-winning drama from Mia Hansen-Løve, when two teenagers step up to the decks at a party in their parents' house. The guests are immediately taken with the pleasing beats they produce, a noise that prompts the film's protagonist to proclaim: "It's modern disco."
The pair are Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, the duo we know as Daft Punk. The song they play is the mighty hit-in-waiting Da Funk. Many of the revellers in the room, including the film's drifting hero Paul, will go on to be key figures in the French Touch scene.
Paul, in real life, is an approximation of Sven Hansen-Løve, the co-writer of Eden and the brother of director Mia. He was at that party and, indeed, many others. As a scenester promoter and one half of the DJ duo named Cheers, Sven was able to get into every club at a moment when, as one of the film's running jokes has it, an unrecognised Daft Punk were turned away at most doors.
Eden piggybacks on some two decades of Sven Hansen-Løve's biography to provide a chronicle of the evolution of French Touch as it moves from small clubs to vast venues and back again. It is an epic undertaking, one that has required a lengthy pre-production stint and much redrafting. Eden was initially envisaged as a diptych, then a television series; the director has called the initial draft of the script the "Heaven's Gate of the 1990s".
“Maybe three years or a little more ago my sister suggested the project,” says Sven Hansen-Løve. “She had just finished a trilogy of films and wanted to do something different. She mentioned the fact that she was interested in doing a film about our generation in the 1990s and the music we listened to. Because I was part of that music scene, she asked me if I wanted to collaborate.
“When she first mentioned it to me, she didn’t say ‘Oh, it’ll be about you’. She just started interviewing me and my involvement grew from there. She was interested in doing a film where the music would be an important character.”
Daft Punk delivers
Music was also a huge potential stumbling block for the project. The Hansen-Løves were determined to use the tracks that had defined their generation, but were told that the rights would cost in excess of €1 million. The siblings had to switch producers twice but ultimately, Daft Punk saved the day. The duo "gifted" Eden three tracks ( Da Funk, One More Time and Veridis Quo) for €3,000.
“We were desperate after those first meetings with producers,” recalls Sven. “Because there was no way we could have made the film if we had to pay one million for music. But we knew the Daft Punk. They are good friends, you know? And they set the price. No one was going to ask for more money than Daft Punk.”
In common with Paul, Sven Hansen-Løve arrived at the French Touch party to the strains of Jaydee's Plastic Dreams.
“It’s the first track you hear in the film and the first electronic track I really loved. But at the start everybody was listening to everything. The first rave I ever went to had a lot of Madchester music. But those songs were intricate. It wasn’t until I heard Kerri Chandler’s music that I realised that house was something that was within reach.”
Still, of all the places in all the world, what was it about the mid-1990s Paris club scene that gave the music such a distinctive sound?
“I guess it was just a new and very young generation,” he says. “We were passionate about music. We were passionate about American house music and soul and gospel and disco. And also European electronic music that you couldn’t really dance to. The technology and computers became available to take these influences and make something catchy. You have the birth of sampling. We wanted to make music that the whole world could dance to that would be very simple.”
Downward spiral
Sven Hansen-Løve had retired from the scene when his sister approached him with the idea for Eden. Viewers will quickly understand why he got out. The film unfolds as a series of parties, music, failed relationships and copious amounts of drugs. It's a trajectory that simultaneously applies to Paul and the music, from euphoria to melancholia, as Hansen-Løve has it.
“There were many reasons to quit,” he says. “I wasn’t making money any more. Also, I had the feeling that nobody cared any more. I couldn’t work without drinking. I was living just at night and sleeping during the day. And I didn’t like that life any more. It felt like I was losing my life. If you only live by night, you get really depressed.”
Many critics have noted similarities in content between Eden and the Coen Brothers' Inside Llewyn Davis. Just as the career of that film's hero (an ersatz Dave Van Ronk) runs parallel to Bob Dylan, Paul (an ersatz Sven Hansen-Løve) is never as successful as his Daft Punk chums.
Is Sven pleased with the body of work he produced, nonetheless?
“Hmm. I am proud of the parties. The Cheers parties meant something at one point. They were important to some people. The music I made . . . I’m not ashamed of it. Well, it’s difficult to say because I had a partner. I didn’t do it only by myself.
“There are tracks that aren’t too bad. But I’m probably more proud of the parties.”
Eden opens on July 24th
