By The opening sequence of Damien Chazelle's 2016 musical La La Land shows commuters sashaying through traffic and dancing on top of their cars, a moment of everyday tedium turned into a showstopper which kicks off the lively and entertaining film.
The latest project which Chazelle has put his touch to, an eight-part Netfix series titled The Eddy, is considerably less jazzy affair, though it does focus again on jazz music – a theme which the director has been fixated with since his debut, Whiplash.
The Eddy is set amongst Paris' grittier streets, a darker side of the city where there are drugs, money woes and a general feeling of melancholy which pervades the series. Moonlight actor André Holland plays Elliot Udo, the owner of a jazz club which the show takes its title from. Elliott is a pianist but has been unable to play since his son died, the sound of jazz he is surrounded by feeling like it is haunting his memories. His daughter Julie (Amandla Stenberg) has moved to Paris to live with him while struggling with a drug problem.
The club is struggling to entice customers, a problem made worse by Elliott's old flame Maja – played by Joanna Kulig from Cold War – having to perform what feels like are sad, sexy songs just for him. His best friend and sunnier counterpart Farid (Tahar Rahim) attempts to help him out of his financial struggles, but there is no all-singing all-dancing happy resolution in this gloomy world.
The fictional club in the series is located in 13th arrondissement in Paris, an area in which Chazelle grew up for part of his childhood and a more diverse and real part of the city than the romantic postcard idea of it. We only see tourist traps like the Eiffel tower glittering in the background momentarily, as far away as though they are in another city.
“There’s this mix in Paris,” Chazelle told Vogue of the inspiration for the series. “You get one glimpse of a Haussmann-era apartment building and you’re thrown into the iconography of plastic Paris. But then right next to it there’s a graffiti-sprayed wall that looks more like Eastern Europe, and down another corner suddenly you feel like you’re in North Africa,”
Though Chazelle only directs the first two episodes of the series, you can see the fingerprints of his fascination with jazz music throughout The Eddy, with numerous scenes dedicated to performances and practises. The music brings the series to life, as do the conversations which mix different languages so that French and Arabic are intertwined together musically.
Although this is a show in which jazz might be a light in these characters' lives, it is still a gloomy picture. Less of the frenzied fun of La La Land, or the mounting tension of Whiplash, more of a slow-burning but evocative story of the universal language of music.
While this kind of downcast mood might not be what you're hankering for during lockdown, it does feel more real and human than bursting into a musical number while getting ready to go to a pool party.
The Eddy is on Netflix now
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