The irresistible crescendo of Bolero De Ravel spits his latest notes – large boxes and cymbals -, and ends, steep, on a black screen. The end credits begins in silence, quickly disturbed by some applause, which cause the rest of the room. Ask around you: almost all the sessions ofFanfare end in the same communion of enthusiasm, more so frequent in cinemas. Already seen more than 2 million times since its release on November 28, Emmanuel Courcol’s film benefited from an excellent word of mouth, and created the cinematic surprise of winter both in Paris and out of the capital.
The intrigue reinterprets some classics of the genre. Affected by leukemia, Thibaut, a great Parisian conductor (embodied by Benjamin Lavernhe, French comedy), discovers at the bend of a DNA test the existence of a biological brother, Jimmy (camped by Pierre Lottin , of the Tuche), school canteen employee, trombone player in a village in the north, and the only compatible donor for a bone marrow transplant. A bit of long quiet rivera bit of Full Monty, Without ever completely taking the too marked paths: Fanfare plays its air with finesse.
Nevertheless, the outlets of success are there. For Aurélie Pinto, sociologist specializing in cinema, most of the popular feature films in recent decades play the card of exacerbated social contrasts: more or less caricatured bourgeois or popular classes, colorful protagonists who suddenly land in an opposite universe at their own, without knowing the codes or traditions. “The shock of cultures has always existed in fiction, because it is very cinematographic and comical. But behind this type of scenario, there is a desire to solve this class contempt, since the two worlds always end up hanging up to common values.
The more the fracture worsens, the more we seem to experience the need to exorcise it by laughter. In recent decades, French society has frozen in social and cultural destinies, where the universes of some less and less meet those of others. At these borders – due in particular to the cost of housing, the bankruptcy of meritocracy, etc. – is now added the fact that we have changed in what we could name the era of “chosen links”. It is quite striking with the internet: everyone believes to be in relation to the whole earth, but in the end, the interactions are mainly done between people of the same opinion.
“Locating a film in the North, it works right away”
These affinity bubbles in which we live make any incursion “suffered” more and more unbearable, which provides an inexhaustible material to comedies. Keep hunting (subtitle We do not choose his neighbors) ; Cocorico (subtitle We do not choose his ancestors); The happy elected (subtitle We don’t choose his daughter-in-law)… Nothing but last year, three French comedies (the first two were hitting) played on the same spring: exceed “what we do not choose” to redo a common company.
To deploy its unifying laughter, the new wave of social satires seems to have found a decor of choice: the red bricks of the north of France. In February 2008, Danny Boon was the first to open the way – or rather the highway – with the immense and unexpected success of Welcome to the Ch’tiswhich will seduce more than 20.4 million spectators (the great commercial success of French cinema to date). On its momentum, the same director continues the blockbusters: Nothing to declare (2010), in which Belgian and French customs officers must learn to coexist, is seen by 8.1 million spectators; Ch’tite family (2018),, who features an architect in vogue having lied about his proletarian origins, caught up by his past and his northern family, by 5.6 million spectators.
Another emblematic success of “made in Hauts-de-France”: THE Tuche, whose fifth installment is released this February 5 in theaters. In 2010, the first in the series was planned under the title Ch’ti is beautiful – It was Danny Boon’s film that decided otherwise – but whatever: the saga of this poor family from a fictitious village in the North and which sees its destiny turned upon after winning 100 million euros at the Lottery has accumulated more than 14 million admissions in ten years (1.5 million in 2010, 4.6 million in 2016, 5.6 million in 2018 and 2.4 million in 2021).
“Locating a film in the North, it works immediately, notes Aurélie Pinto. It has become a kind of narrative, scriptwriting asset, which makes it possible to place the viewer in a specific social reality [NDLR : la désindustrialisation] While drawing comic effects on the clichés linked to the region around accent, weather, gastronomy or lifestyles. “A bias that also works for more political comedies, like the image of Rebels (925,000 admissions in 2019), which narrates the adventures of three workers from Boulogne-sur-Mer entangled in a series of problems after having involuntarily killed their boss, or Invisible (1.3 million admissions the same year), which retraces the relentlessness of social workers to save their reception center for homeless women.
“Recognizable know-how”
The success of these films is partly based on a series of well -identified actors from the French, such as Dany Boon, Corinne Masiero or Yolande Moreau, but also, sometimes, on the presence of actors in circumstance, which allow the film to be anchored directly in a recognizable reality. Thus, the real musicians of the municipal harmony of the minors of Lallaing play their own role in Fanfare. “There is this need for accuracy and sincerity, whether in the chosen themes, the scenario, the actors or the promotion,” confirms François Clerc, president of Apollo Films and distributor of the Invisible.
For several decades, the Hauts-de-France region has understood that the diversity of its landscapes, its rich history and its location an hour from TGV from Paris, London and Brussels allowed it to occupy a strategic place in the industry cinema. Via its regional agency Pictanovo, created in 1985, the region has largely contributed to the development of filming on its territory. “There is a real political investment on the subject, with budgetary envelopes that have more than doubled for a few years, going from 4 to 8.6 million euros,” the Express Godefroy Vujicic, CEO of Pictanovo told the Express of Pictanovo .
The region’s ability to quickly mobilize its more than 650 technicians and 1,200 “natural or built” sets and to offer ideal shooting conditions in the 16 cities of its “Film Friendly” network also seems to have convinced many producers and directors. In 2023, Pictanovo was delighted with “more than a thousand days of shooting” on the territory, just on the fiction aspect. The various festivals organized in Hauts-de-France, such as the Cinecomedies of Lens-Liévin, the Arras Film Festival or the essential Mania Mania series, as well as the multiple premieres organized in large regional complexes, n ‘ More than attracting local or national spectators. “So much so that when a film comes out with the label stamped ‘shot in the North’, the spectators respond present: they expect a certain type of comedies, with specific quality and recognizable know-how”, considers Laurent Coët, director of a cinema in Saint-Pol-sur-Ternoise (Pas-de-Calais) and Vice-President of the Union Chamber of Operators in the North/Pas-de-Calais region.
Atmosphere soft power
The bet is just as successful on the small screen, as evidenced by the success of the series HPI, Broadcast on TF1 since 2021, and some episodes have exceeded 10 million viewers. According to Ouest-France, It is even the third most watched series in the country since the creation of the modern audience measure. The synopsis: Morgane Alvaro (embodied by Audrey Fleurot) is a cleaning lady, 38 -year -old single mother, who has 3 children, 2 ex, 5 credits and 160 Qi. She will see her destiny switch when her extraordinary capacities are identified by the Lille police, of which she will become a consultant as rebellious as it is effective. So much for the starting point. “Here again, one wonders if the series would have worked as much if it had been shot elsewhere. The North is in fact used in the background, as a full -fledged component of the series,” said Laurent Coët.
With this role of single mother who holds high dragee to the rest of society, Audrey Fleurot has hoisted among the most popular women in the country: in the classification of the Tribune Sunday (made with a sample of French), it is even designated third female personality having marked 2024. Little have noted it, but on the screen, the character she embodies in Hpi looks like it is mistaken in Ingrid Levavasseur, single mother, nursing assistant, and is the first milling yellow vests. Same red hair, same hairstyles, and same silhouette. “They have already told me several times, told us the latter. But I couldn’t realize it for myself: I don’t look HPI. “ Have the creators of the series inspired or is it a coincidence? After all, it doesn’t matter. This is mainly a kind of soft power of atmosphere. Sometimes the public thing makes its way through entertainment. And the North is its favorite decor.
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