Don't get the title confused, this isn't the Beatles musical film. This is the documentary of the electronic duo known as Justice. If you haven't heard of them, they're more like a hardcore sounding version of Daft Punk. If you haven't heard of them, then you wouldn't be reading this blog.
Onto the film, or rather documentary: it can be said (and it probably has) that this film doesn't function as a documentary in its traditional sense, but more like a journal that accompanies the band's journey across America. Perhaps it's important to mention here that Justice, or the members, rather, are very, very French.
The two members names are Gaspard and Xavier and are (or were) touring across North America, starting at the east coast, driving through Canada, and down the west coast for the ending of their tour. These two, beside having almost no knowledge of the English language, are completely and totally awkward. A lot of the film is quite humorous, since in the beginning, Gaspard and Xavier are new to the US and Canada and do a lot of weird and funny things that we (and/or citizens) don't usually do in our own country, such as waiting for the driver to fix a blown tire by laying in the grass across the highway.
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| Gaspard from Justice (Center) relaxes after a show. |
As the film progresses, the events become both harder and harder to believe, and also easier and easier to believe, but nonetheless progressively intensely crazier. Some of the events hinge on Gaspard and Xavier's bodyguard being obsessed with guns, acquiring one through the mail and carrying it with him wherever they go (which got him into trouble once).
At one point he commented that, much like the way people wear bracelets, he decides to 'wear' his gun, which generally means him holding it in his hand at all times, just in case that when it comes down to it, it's right there and easy to use in a tricky situation.
Since the band is touring, some footage shows their performances in certain venues, but not for whole songs or concerts. Rather, footage of concerts only really exist in the film to both remind us that Gaspard and Xavier are musicians, and show us any interesting things that happen before, during or after performances. Normally for musicians (or how we think it is normally for them), it's the performances and concerts that contain the meat of their experiences, but as this film outlines, and possibly argues, it is the travelling itself that artists love to experience, whereas the performances are more or less monotonous to them.
By focusing on the travelling aspect, we get to know the artist a lot better than just hearing them play.
And in this case, in the case of Justice, you might not like what you find.
If you care about numerical rating systems:
Nine crosses out of ten.
