Mary Lucia: Eagles of Death Metal doc highlights shared love of rock 'n' roll
by Mary Lucia
February 21, 2017
Eagles Of Death Metal: Nos Amis (Our Friends), the new HBO documentary made by Colin Hanks, explores the arc of the tragedy of the Paris shootings on Nov. 13, 2015. Nine terrorists armed with guns, grenades and suicide belts calculated a mass murder — symbolically, an assault on joy-filled culture — targeting a soccer stadium, cafés, and the Bataclan Concert Hall where Eagles of Death Metal were performing.
Nos Amis focuses on the experience through the eyes of Eagles Of Death Metal's swagalicious front man, Jesse Hughes. It's just as much a story about friendship as it is about trying to process an unspeakable trauma. The childhood relationship between Jesse Hughes and Josh Homme is the focus of the first 30 minutes; Josh, as protector and champion of Jesse, uses his love to rock out as a means of encouragement in overcoming personal struggle. Clearly these two have more in common than a bro-mance and shared love of loud amps.
Hanks faced some initial resistance from the band when he proposed the idea of the documentary. Lordy, considering the emotional toll and mental scars that resulted in that night of terror, who would be surprised if they had said no?
Perhaps fearing the focus would be pulled away from the story, Hanks wanted to document, he interestingly left out the fallout from Jesse's shell-shocked statements about gun control and terrorism made months after the attacks. It is merely hinted at in a French interview from February 2016, when an impassioned Hughes rails to an interviewer, "Did your French gun control stop a single f-----g person from dying at the Bataclan? Maybe until nobody has guns, everybody has to have them."
I wouldn't try to pretend to understand the trauma the people in Paris experienced that night, or more specifically Hughes' ground-zero perspective, but given the rest of the film's heavy emphasis on the unifying relationship between band and audience as one big love-fest, it sounds more like the thoughts of a confused, scared survivor.
One of the more revealing confessions Hughes makes in trying to grasp the horrific event is, "I just want rock and roll to go back to being the way it was for me." The band did return to Paris a few weeks after the attack on invitation from fellow musical friends U2. With the events still being so fresh and gaping, it's hard for me to imagine them boarding that plane with defiance and not unmitigated fear.
My takeaway from this doc is plentiful, but oddly a concern I have with Jesse as a human being — going from beat-up flute-playing teen geek to fronting a struttin' rock band and having a remarkable connection with his live audience — may indeed be what initially saved the young Jesse Hughes. Routinely, his stage banter is made up of a sincere bellowing, "I f-----g love you motherf-----s"! While I do admire that spirit of "We are united by RAWK and shaking our collective asses," my fear is perhaps he is taking on too much responsibility. If your whole identity is defined by your place on a stage and the people who beat their heads in unison in front of you, God forbid that should ever be taken away as it almost was on the night of the Paris attacks.
Who are you then? Or as David Bowie asks, "Where are we now?"
In our current climate of uncertainty and divisive suspicions, maybe it is a healing thought that what ties us together can be as simple as a shared love of life, compassion and Ze Rock and Ze Roll.
Resources
Eagles of Death Metal: Nos Amis (Our Friends) - official HBO site
Eagles of Death Metal - official site
