Asian Dub Foundation

When film and music are married together properly (think Apocalypse Now, Trainspotting, Amélie), the results are nothing short of pure alchemy. Tonight, socially aware Bollywood punksters Asian Dub Foundation are providing a live soundbed for the film La Haine, and it’s making for one of the most incendiary live events of the Dublin Fringe Festival. In addition, the much-underused Temple Theatre, with its crimson walls and high ceilings, is the perfect backdrop for the show.

La Haine, of course, is a disconcerting and dark film about a riotous, semi-fascist state invoked on the streets of urban, multicultural Paris. The images themselves are hugely disorientating, often made of hand-held, grainy black and white shots. It seems hugely fitting, then, that a similarly political, dog-eat-dog outfit is musically re-interpreting the film. Their performance is slightly more subdued than normal, presumably so as not to visually clash with the film. The live score itself, mixed in with the film’s existing score and sound design, is truly wondrous, embellishing events when necessary.

It’s certainly heart warming to note that some acts are thinking outside the box with regards to the usual gig experience, and bringing a little piece of (ghetto) heaven to the city.