Romain Gavras recently made a few headlines with his video of MIA's Born Free song - a 'controversial' take on race that involved red heads, evil institutionalized force and compulsory runs over mine-filled deserts. The video's temporary ban from YouTube and MIA's New York Times post-article scandal gave the French filmmaker's work more North-American exposure than his three precedent videos for Ed Banger musicians - DJ Medhi, Justice and Simian Mobile Disco.
Highly publicized, these videos' subject matter, caliber of production and trendy realism enabled him to be coined a provocative filmmaker. Provocation helps success. At 29, Gavras has done well for himself and his first feature film Notre Jour Viendra is coming out in September.
If, to his credit unlike most music video directors Gavras' works presents some of humanity's most unglamorous aspects, the filmmaker's simple concept of taking a marginalized group of people (aka those who will not consume the final product), collecting their objects, habits, faces and homes, and then enrobe the whole with self-professed underground coolness (Ed Bangar music), doesn't seem to do much more than re-appropriating uncool (read poor) people and making them look very cool to his own advantage.
Highly publicized, these videos' subject matter, caliber of production and trendy realism enabled him to be coined a provocative filmmaker. Provocation helps success. At 29, Gavras has done well for himself and his first feature film Notre Jour Viendra is coming out in September.
If, to his credit unlike most music video directors Gavras' works presents some of humanity's most unglamorous aspects, the filmmaker's simple concept of taking a marginalized group of people (aka those who will not consume the final product), collecting their objects, habits, faces and homes, and then enrobe the whole with self-professed underground coolness (Ed Bangar music), doesn't seem to do much more than re-appropriating uncool (read poor) people and making them look very cool to his own advantage.
Like thirsty hipsters re-appropriating red-neck icons like the plaid shirt and Paps Blue Ribbon beer a few years back, Gavras has made re-appropriating caïlleras (rascals) beating the shit out of Japanese tourists on Montmartre and the tackiness of old mining towns the main feature of his success. He wouldn't be caught dead jump dancing around a car in northern Europe but hell yes is he ready to film it.
So his images might be beautifully cold, his characters filled with a certain charming realism and the ambivalence of the details he fills his frames with captivaing, yet there's something much more disturbing in Gavras' approach than there is provocative and controversial in his final renditions.
Justice's Stress:
Simian Mobile Disco's I Believe:
