ARCHIVES 2015 / L'amour et les forêts

 “Dark and yet luminous,” according to Baudelaire, the ink of melancholy hasn't dried up yet. And thanks to the marriage of rock and literature, it is once again renewed. The rock of Feu! Chatterton, recent and dazzling revelation of the French scene, a young quintet from Paris influenced as much by Television and Radiohead as by Serge Gainsbourg and Alain Bashung, whose libertarian lyricism echoing through the electric spheres made the renown; the literature of Éric Reinhardt, of Love and Forests, his latest social novel, his first intimate story. The story of Bénédicte Ombredanne, who tries to escape her husband's violence in the arms of another, without ever succeeding. Together, they could have written a concept album. Singer, writer, and musicians chose instead a concert at the intersection between writing and presence, intertwining voices and tones, questioning “the despairs of a new century already worn out.” To many, melancholy is this cursed illness that the contact with nature turns into a form of poetic vertigo. With this show, this ephemeral band says no to oblivion, and yes to being, without forgetting that, sometimes, bravery can't but break on the chains of reality.

 Éric Reinhardt published in first novel, Half Sleep, in 1998. With Le Moral des ménages (2002) and Existence (2004), he became known for his brutal and sarcastic stories, portraits of middle-class characters who fall prey to the diktat of social achievement. A theme he further explored in Cendrillon (2007) and Le Système Victoria (2011), about globalisation and the world of finance versus the greater good, the uniqueness of the individual, and the search for beauty.As a playwright, he wrote a short play about money, Leverage de quatre (2009), for the Comédie-Française, and the libretto of a ballet by Angelin Preljocaj, Siddharta, for the Opéra Bastille (2009). His play Elisabeth ou l'Equité was created in 2013 by Frédéric Fisbach at the Théâtre du Rond-Point. He enjoys bringing together different disciplines and has taken part in several musical readings, with Marie-Agnès Gillot or Betrand Belin. In 2012, Éric Reinhardt was awarded a Globe de cristal d'honneur for his work. In 2014, his latest novel, Love and Forests, was awarded the prix Renaudot des lycéens, the prix du roman France Télévisions, and the prix des étudiants France Culture-Télérama 2015.

FEU!CHATTERTON
Arthur (lead singer and lyricist), Clément and Sébastien (guitars, keyboards, and music) have known each other since secondary school. For eleven years, they tried to find their musical identity by mixing slam, jazz, and fusion, before finding their literary brand of alternative rock. The band is born in 2011 and takes its name from a young and tormented poet, Thomas Chatterton, whose suicide—painted by Henry Wallis and depicted by Alfred de Vigny—was a key moment in the history of Romanticism. A year later, Antoine (bass guitar) and Raphaël (drums) join the band, whose first album, La Mort dans la pinède (Death in the Pine Wood), quite the statement of purpose, finds a large public. Feu! Chatterton turns out to be quite the live sensation at the Francofolies festival and at Rock en Seine. In 2014, they are awarded the Prix Chorus, which allows them to produce two EPs, as well as their second video, La Malinche. Poetry, prog rock, catchy orchestrations: their music, deep and danceable, is fascinating in the way it covers its own tracks and changes what can and can't be done in French music.

LOVE AND FORESTS
An idealistic literature professor fascinated by the work of Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, Bénédicte Ombredanne tells a novelist about the abuse she is subjected to every day, humiliated by a manipulative, sadistic husband, who became even more violent after she tried, two years earlier, to regain control of her life. How can one, almost by accident and as a result of a series of small surrenders, find oneself trapped in an existence that couldn't be further from one's deepest aspirations? This is the fate of this modern tragic heroine.