Vive la fete et la France

I went to France a little while back and didn't really get a feel of what music was big there. I stumbled upon a little indie scene online and they played the first night I went but I was to shy to ask where the venue was on my first night there- consequently I missed the show completely. There's something absolutely terrifying about entering a place where few people speak the same language as you. The band that I missed is called Clint is Gone. A cute outfit from Paris, France - they are cute and odd like Little Joy, with their charm too.

The venue they were going to play is called L'international and it's located around Oberkampf but that's as far as I got because I was too shy to ask for directions.

My favourite film I saw of 2009 is called Same Same but Different. I saw it twice at TIFF and it moved me, I don't think i've been shaken so much by the film. It made me feel. BUT there was a very eerie song used throughout the film that I think equally captured the tension well. It's by a band called Vive la Fete, who are an electronic/rock band from Belgium and the tune is called "Noir Desir". The song was also used in the Canadian film written and directed by the twenty year-old Xavier Dolan J'ai tue ma mere. I saw the film on my way back from France and thought about what a silly guy this was as I had previously served him working at TIFF. He's just a kid and on that note I thought about how tremendous this film is. The posters for it are even more terrific (see below) and it's coming out real soon. I felt crappy watching it, but the hype is right it's a solid film.

Also, when I went to France it was really funny to juxtapose when films were coming out in France and in Canada. Away We Go which I had bought on DVD a few weeks before my trip was just making it in to theatres while Alain Renais' film Les herbes folles I had seen at TIFF just one month before was already hitting theatres. It probably won't be here for another ten or twelve months if it does make its way to a second run cinema.