Justice: Across the Universe

This one hour piece filmed & directed by Romain gavras follows around the French DJ duo Justice (which consists of Gaspard Auge & Xavier de rosnay)

On their US tour, there are no special effects or fancy cameras used in this film nor is there any editing on the footage just plain raw tour footage as if it had been filmed on a hand held camera then burnt onto disc, this film was obviously run off a budget because the quality of the film is very basic, this gives that feel of classic tour film footage which goes really well with the whole of that scene of the film which is going from sold out venues like

Madison square garden and then going to tiny clubs which are jam packed, it also shows the boring side of tour because most of the film consists of the two Frenchman with friend’s wandering around different states and re-capping the wonders of each one from snowy Canada-where they fed a squirrel aspirin-to meeting crazed fans in L.A.

The history of Justice

Justice started out in 2003 with their well known remix of Simians ‘Never be alone’ which is now better known ‘We are your friends’, which was created for a Paris college radio station as a remix contest, which then got them signed to Ed Banger Records in Paris-who’s boss is busy p, another well known DJ-who released the track, it instantly became a massive hits in clubs and the internet all over the world, but it only finally got commercial release in the UK in the summer of 2006 under the title of ‘We Are Your Friends’.

After word had got round about these two they were do more remixes for more mainstream artist’s such as Britney Spears, N*E*R*D, Daft Punk and Fatboy Slim.

Their first ever solo single was then shortly to be released in 2005 on Ed Banger Records with the title of “Waters of Nazareth”, this new fresh sound caught the attention of lots of big DJ’s such as Tiga, 2 many DJ’s and Erol Alkan. But yet again the track was re-released in 2006 but with additional remixes by the likes of Erol Alkan and themselves.

Justice’s first major achievement was at the MTV Europe music awards in 2006 for ‘we are your friends’, even though they were not their at the Ceremony fellow DJ and label art director “So Me” was there to pick it up On behalf of them, but during mid-speech he was interrupted by Kanye West, who rushed the stage arguing that he should have won the award on live television.

On their MySpace page in late 2005, Justice described themselves as “electro-Christian-club” and used a crucifix as a logo. de Rosnay said, “Eighty percent of France is Christian. My Dad was a bit uncertain and thought it was bad taste, but I was like, ‘This is what I want to do Dad.’ It’s odd because in America we have received support from Christian groups thanking us for spreading the word. We do not invert the cross and I suppose they think we look like nice guys so there has not been a problem.” In an interview for Dummy in 2005, Justice said that they wanted a strong concept for each record they put out and with this one they wanted to keep people guessing.

Music Video’s

Justice Vs. Simian – “We Are Your Friends”

D.A.N.C.E

DVNO

Stress

With their music video stress there were a lot of problems with censorship because when they uploaded their music video for Stress to YouTube on 1 May 2008, having had several TV stations boycott the video. The clip features a group of youths committing acts of vandalism and harassment, wearing jackets with the Justice cross on the back. Accused in some quarters of racism for its stereotypical act of youths of black decent from Paris’ socially deprived council estates, others saw the video as a critique of their portrayal in the French media. Speaking in an interview with The Quietus website, Aug said, “We were expecting some fuss obviously, but definitely not on those topics… If people see racism in the video, it’s definitely because they might have a problem with racism; because they only see black people beating up white people, which is not what happens.”

Conclusion

This Hour long ‘master piece’ as it has been described by others is full of electronic music all over the US with alcohol infused fans screaming their love for justice and a lot more other quirky scenes which would bring a smile or confusion over a fans face, but I would recommend for any electro music fan or definitely any Justice fan to buy it because personally it was the best hour and four minutes I have spent watching a screen!