Reviews on series The Eddy (3)

A clever marketing move from Netflix is to promote the mini-series “Eddie Bar” as a serial trial of the pen of Damien Chazelle, the director of the already cult creations “Obsession” and “La La Land” and the criminally underrated “Man on the Moon”.
Of course, from a commercial point of view - the right decision, but especially gullible viewers while watching it can be slightly discouraged, because the youngest winner of the director's "Oscar" in this project is only one, putting the first two episodes and acting as an executive producer. "Whirlpool" is, first of all, the child of Jack Thorne, the author of the idea and screenwriter of all series.
In addition to the above, a significant contribution to the project was made by TV producer Alan Paul ("News Service", "The Client is Always Dead") and legendary music producer Glen Ballard, who worked with both Michael Jackson and Katy Perry. So the series is the collective brainchild of these people, and not the only merit of Chazelle, as presented a year ago by most media.
At the same time, from the first minutes it becomes clear why the project is so closely associated with the name of the Oscar-winning director, because in the center of the story is a small jazz club “At Eddie’s”, located on the recluses of Paris, similar to the one that Sebastian dreamed of in “La La Land”. Only this time, Hollywood refinement and staged verification give way to the truth-bending and staged hairlessness of European acute social cinematography and the best representatives of American India.

“Whirlpool” at its core turns out to be a deafening, pulsating and roaring jazz composition, deceptively seeming excessively chaotic and barefoot. Well, how else, if the action takes place in Paris - this boiling pot of cultures, in whose urban noise mixed English, Polish, Arabic and French. Each episode of the series is a separate solo, a virtuoso melody about the painful, tormenting or non-healing. For some, this performance is brighter and louder, for others it is less catchy and exciting, but at the end of the story all this will merge into the final and spiritual score. This dramatic reception is not new, but still valid.
The project strictly follows the principles of the best examples of author’s and independent, adhering to the visual aesthetics of the festival: the series speaks, plays and sings about the eternal and rhetorical, as well as about the quite ordinary and relevant. In the symphony of everyday life mixed a variety of event motifs - here there was a place for criminal and melodramatic. The cameraman’s manner of filming echoes this irrepressible narrative melody, relentlessly following the characters and annoyingly creeping into their faces.
In general, a good and soulful mini-series, in which, along with professional actors, real musicians quite organically solo: Contrabassist Damian Nueva. Drummer Lada Obradovich. Saxophonist Joey Omisil. Keyboardist Randy Kerber, longtime collaborator with Ballard. The trumpeter Louis Louis performing with Lenny Kravitz. The actors and musicians worked so hard on the set that now The Eddy exists in reality (the soundtrack album is signed), and Alan Paul still wants to go on a small tour with her. And a special respect to the creators for inviting the beautiful Ioanna Kulig to the castes (having won my heart in Pavlikovsky’s delightful Cold War, the actress continues to charm in the image of the soloist of the title band).
Verdict: Kulik praises this swamp!

I started listening to jazz right after I saw the film ' Obsession' Damien Chazelle. And so, six years later, Chazelle releases a series about a jazz club, in which he directs the first two series and serves as an executive producer. My high expectations played a role and I waited, very painfully and long, for something that loomed in my head with an incredible combination of visual accompaniment to delightful jazz compositions. On the one hand, everything turned out to be so, but on the other hand, I almost abandoned this case after the first half of the season, expecting some kind of development of the story, rather than trampling it in place.
France, Paris are our time. Somewhere in the corner is the bar 'The Eddy' ('Whirlpool'), after which the series itself is named and in which the best jazz musicians of France, if not the whole world, perform. Elliot is running the whole thing, performed by the same guy from 'AIU: Roanoke' and 'Moonlight' (Andre Holland). His goal is to promote the musicians who play at his club, his songs and his music. But, as usual, everything turns out to be not so simple, because modern Paris is a rather dangerous place for entrepreneurs, and especially if your business partner began to mess with something on the side, using a bar as a place to sell something.
Initially, reading the descriptions and watching the trailers, I thought the idea of the series would be to show the sacrifices you have to make in order to achieve your dream. Well, I mean, I thought we were waiting 'La La Land', only in the world of TV shows. On the one hand, that’s what happened, because some of the characters are really trying to figure out why they’re making music, and so what if they’re doing it? Why not just become a backing vocalist for France’s most famous artist and go on tour with him around the world, while others perform at weddings, while having small, but still means to live? Although as a result, the answers to these questions will be quite banal, but the viewer at least understands what conclusions the hero made and why exactly such, and not others, despite the fact that they will be outrageously everyday.

On the other hand, the series was completely beyond my expectations, adding to the narratives a criminal story I didn’t know about. Is that my problem? Absolutely! But let's look at it from a different angle. Let's pretend that I'm the average viewer who saw the poster of the series and wanted to move away from the ruthless 'pop' world, into the world of refined and intelligent music. He includes the series, sees an absolutely stunning first series, which was directed personally by Chazelle and falls in love with the world that looms at the very beginning and in songs that are so emotional and soulful in their performance that they will not leave anyone indifferent. And then at the end, something happens that fundamentally changes the whole story. This is 'something' with its predictability, it looks very appropriate and makes you immediately turn on the next episode. And then it begins that continues a good half of the whole season - a criminal story that has lost the former charm of comfort and the essence of it is to reveal to the viewer the everyday life of each of the characters, slowly, with a minimum of surrounding colors, which at first can even drive into an easy feeling of loneliness and sadness. In the situation, it looks appropriate, but the transition is so sharp that the viewer does not have time to prepare for it and, expecting that now everything will return to comfort and warmth, is deceived. Chances are, if I had known this before, the desire to turn off the series, forget about it, and be disappointed in Chazelle didn’t arise. At the same time, I am glad that I forced myself to watch the story to the end, so that after watching it for a long time to sing songs in my head and return to this crazy jazz world.
I think it’s a great time to move on to technical and musical accompaniment because they don’t exist without each other, and that’s really cool! The visual style of the series is similar to documentary footage from archival videos of the 70-80s. The camera is not afraid to show us events from afar, watching the characters and their behavior, while not being a direct participant in the events. But in moments of a certain emotional intensity, the camera comes close to the characters, while the shaking from the handheld camera increases, imitating something phone shooting. The visual style in general is sharpened to the feeling that everything was filmed. A certain bias in the warm color scheme and excessive grain contributes to the immersion in the world of jazz of the late 20th century. The camera is sometimes so flirted that the shadow from it falls on objects and actors that are nearby.
What was surprising to me was that the actors actually performed all the songs on the show themselves, playing all the instruments. I didn’t even believe it, but then I was convinced, watching the video ' about the music in the TV series '. My doubts crept in when I saw the familiar face of the singer of songs. I Googled it and it turned out that it was none other than Johanna Kulig - Polish actress known for the title role in the film ' Cold War' Pavel Pawlikowski. Her performance captivates, captures and amazes to the depths of the soul with a voice that cannot be thrown out of your head.
How do visual accompaniment and music combine? It's very simple! The camera during their performances rises to the stage and leads everything in one take to the end of the number. Acting acting, incredible music and worked-out camera movement, can captivate no worse than any action in blockbusters, and the style of documentary filming completely immerses in the history and atmosphere.
I spent a couple of days thinking about whether I liked it or not. Not the best ways to build relationships between the characters, in the end lined up in the whole story of the heroes and the bar & #39; Whirlpool & #39; on which each of them depends, without exception. He draws everyone into his world, mixing everything into a single substance, but this mixing occurs only at the end, where the funnel becomes narrower and narrower. It was at the end of the series that all the most interesting and touching things happened, so much so that I cried under the final musical composition and production. I'd be lying if I said the show didn't leave a pleasant aftertaste. On the contrary, I still listen every day to the soundtrack that brings me back to this world. There are obvious problems, but I do not want to focus on them, although I wrote most of them. The main thing to understand is that this is not exactly what you expect to see, but it is worth it, definitely!

Damien Chazelle, director of the already iconic 'La La Landa' and ' Obsession' produced and slightly directed a new series for Netflix. It sounds interesting, it looks even more interesting.

The main character is a former pianist, and now not very successful businessman Elliot Udo, who owns a stake in the Paris jazz club '. His troubles begin with the arrival of his troubled and impulsive daughter Julie, threats from a large gang associated with his friend and part-time second manager of the club Farid, and a rift in the musical team of the institution, where his ex-girlfriend Maya also plays. Contrary to the theme of jazz and the name Chazelle in the directors, the series is closer to the criminal street tapes of Scorsese (' Evil Streets' for example) and the Safdie brothers (' Uncut Jewelry'). The handheld film camera is constantly in motion and on the nerves, which gives the narrative a special flavor and works on the atmosphere better than nowhere. Elliot and his loved ones have to experience an incessant whirlpool of troubles, troubles and stress. Each episode focuses on the story of one of the characters mixed with the main story (and, remarkably, no flashbacks, all in the present). Most of the characters, even minor ones, are real people with realistic emotions, real characters and problems, most of which are close to each person (betrayal, moral choice, choice between career and family). It is noteworthy that the action takes place in the most romantic city in the world - Paris, but ' Eddy' will not show you couples in love, exquisite architecture and French charm, and the Eiffel Tower flashes here only once and then in the background. Paris in the vision of Chazelle and screenwriter Jack Thorne ('Miracle') is a dark, depressing, graffiti-painted and infested with migrants with guns. Even the narrow street on which the Elliott Club is located is aged in muted gray-brown colors. To see such a radically non-cinematic Paris is a unique chance (and yes, I would like to believe that this is a scenery, and not a real city, as in Scorsevo & #39; Taxi Driver').
Despite the criminal orientation, 'Eddie' still the series is about music, relationships in the musical team, overcoming oneself. The plot line of the group is devoted to the preparation for the recording of their album and the impact of threats towards Elliot on his team. For me personally, the topic of musical groups is close because I myself was a member of the group and I have a good idea of most conflicts within the groups. I’ll be honest – scenes of jazz songs steal all the attention and this is probably the best thing in the series.
Of the drawbacks: in the middle, to the 5-6 series, the pace begins ' slow down' and watch a bit hard, but to the end of it as it did not happen.
'Bar' Eddie' is a uniquely excellent, atmospheric and non-lethal spectacle, which equally well copes with the task of scaring the viewer with disassemblies and calming the soft soundtrack. It is a tightly written and staged, endlessly shaking and relaxing whirlwind of everyday problems, a realistic criminal component and a not outstanding but interesting plot. This is a series that plays in the rhythm of jazz and gives itself completely and is definitely one of the best this year.
8 out of 10