The Eddy: Netflix and Damien Chazelle write a love letter to jazz

All in The Eddy (6,3 in FilmAffinity and mixed reviews) es a disastrous and beautiful chaos in the image and likeness of jazz, favorite musical genre of a Damien Chazelle (Whiplash, La la land) that, throughout the eight episodes of this Netflix premiere, seems to be more aware of the music than of the series. It is not a musical, but a series about music; a series like none you've seen (or heard) so far.

criticism of The Eddy: An Imperfect Treat

The Eddy is the creation of Jack Thorne, and Chazelle only directs the first two chapters, but his name flies over the entire production as executive director. The Eddy it is pure jazz in substance and form. A love letter to a genre that, like the Netflix series itself, is not made for all audiences.

Due to the lack of orthodoxy in the rhythm of events and in the structure (of both the episodes and the season), The Eddy It's the closest thing to a Coltrane or Davis record that's ever been recorded… with a camera. U.S The Eddy We found it to be a fresh, different and entertaining treat. but not round. And we have to insist: maybe this is not a bad thing.

The Eddy is the name of a joint of the 13eme arrondissement from Paris. An ideal district, given the size of the immigrant population, chipped sidewalks and alleys Bataclan, to make it clear the vision of the anti-cliché Paris that The Eddy pursues in each of his shots (from the only time we see the Eiffel Tower, dirty and out of frame, to each of the shenanigans that take place in a banlieue taken from the movie La Haine).

French cinema consumers, new wave y cinema verità © aside, those who liken the French capital to the neat postcards that Woody Allen shot a decade ago for the magical Midnight in Paris. 

Here you have come to suffer

At The Eddy a series of musicians play every night who, despite being closer to 50 than 30, continue to experience the fatigue of a teenager drunk on ideals. Lots of ratholes with worn posters, unmade beds and unwashed dishes in The Eddy. Here the mantra is that music justifies the martyrdom of the other, of the remaining 23 hours of life that remains to be filled.

Every episode of The Eddy focuses on one character (and attention, point in favor: not all the stories are about members of the band, made up of the singer, pianist, trumpet, sax, double bass and drums).

The main plot revolves around the growing complications of Elliot Udo, the manager of the bar (a former professional American pianist played superbly by André Holland) to, in addition to continuing to keep the bar afloat, try to record a record with the band that he has formed with the most select of what has been found in the alleys of Paris since he was exiled from New York after the death of his son and divorce.

unfortunate criminal plot

The record deal (this time longed for, and not demonized as it happens with Sebastian and John Legend in la la land) It seems like the only way to escape from a messy, repetitive existence with no more incentive than playing the same songs for the same people every night... but in an almost bohemian bar in Paris. A day to day whose routine nature, like everything in this life when it is stolen from us, will turn into longing and desire as soon as Elliot Udo is involved in dark dealings with a local mafia society that threatens to destroy the bar if he does not pay them some money. owed.

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This long-running criminal puzzle (too many Eastern European visits to the bar wanting a fight) only contributes to the well-known mantra of "pursue your dreams, no matter how difficult they are and no matter how much they are going to fuck you up day in and day out." day". The criminal plot becomes heavy, repetitive and strange. At times the chaos of everything that is happening in The Eddy it is too imposed. It's as if someone in the room said, 'hey guys, we need to insert some story somewhere and make sure everything is jumbled up; we need an extra singod in this scene.

This imposed beginning, middle and end coexist almost independently, in one corner of the series, along with the rest of the music, life and personal stories, of much greater interest and just as destructive.

The Eddy win whole in the independent scenes of the criminal plot; in the dialogues of long glances and silenced recriminations; on that good morning between friends who don't need to say anything to start playing together, in a minute that appears magically available on that morning that had dawned so cold, one on the piano and the other on the trumpet, professing their friendship half interpreting half improvising that new melody that may finally be THE melody that gets them out of the hole.

The Eddy: many stories in only 8 chapters

Basic idea: how it costs us humans the odyssey of loving each other and making ourselves understood, but how lush and curious the music we could write with the mess we are leaving along the way. Some examples of the many stories that we look at in just eight hours of series:

• The arrival in Paris of the teenage daughter of Elliot Udo (Amandla stenberg, perhaps the greatest revelation of TheEddy) and the conflictive relationship between the two.
• The beautiful phase of maturity of Elliot's daughter, immersed in a family drama and struggling to find her place in the world (romance included).
• The back-and-forth relationship between Elliot and the singer, Maja (played by Polish Joanna kulig).
• The dabbling with drugs and the visit of an old love of one of the characters.
• The constant push and pull of some members of the band with Elliot Udo, who treats all the members of the group with a certain paternalism.
• The feeling of loyalty and belonging (and subsequent rejection) when one of the group members is replaced or when another considers leaving the group to tour Europe with an orchestra.
• The miracle of multicultural and peaceful integration in Europe.

It is symptomatic that we can eliminate any of these stories and that The Eddy keep working perfectly. More than a puzzle This series is one of those pastime-towers made up of pieces of wood that one can extract without fear of the structure still standing.

The Eddy It is a beautiful slice of life, rhythm and drama that takes place in a very specific place, at a very specific time and starred by some imperfect characters who summarize in themselves, in their passions, in their failures and in their fears, the primary reason why we continue (and will continue) consuming movies and series: peek for a while at the disastrous and beautiful chaos of other people's existences in order, perhaps, to try to better understand ours.

Everything (until its end) seeks to break with the established. The Eddy It brings together the unpredictability of a jazz song and the charm of something that is consciously and indifferently excessive. Even the typical romantic chase scene at the airport ends in a different execution than intended.

The Eddy is, along with zerozerozero, the best that this confined 2020 has given us so disastrous that someone, someday, better write a song in conditions.