by Stéphanie Secqueville
The favourite: Les Choristes returns on DVD
With more than seven million cinema admissions, Christophe Barratier’s first feature film got audiences excited. The film is set in 1948 and tells the story of Clément Mathieu (the deeply moving Gérard Jugnot), a music teacher who takes a job as a warder in a reform school. By introducing these young tearaways to singing, he manages to give them hope. Simple and moving, the film, short-listed for the 2005 Oscars, provides a good lesson in humanity and an outstanding musical score. Its unexpected success has become a real social phenomenon, equalling that of Amélie Poulain.
They talk to us of love ...
After an absence of eight years, Véronique Sanson, an artist with an outstanding voice and an excellent musician, who writes and composes her entire repertoire, makes her come-back with Longue Distance [Long Distance], a very sensitive album. Cali, the musical revelation of 2004, puts her name to L’Amour parfait [Perfect Love], a very promising first album, in a style that is a blend of pop-rock and romantic ballad.
Jarre makes his own sound revolution!
With Aero, the pioneer of electronic music brings in an innovation by using Dolby Digital 5-1, a sound process normally used in film. He revisits his twelve greatest hits and offers the audience four unpublished pieces. The result: cloud nine! Jean-Michel Jarre opened the festivities of France in China Year with a concert in the forbidden city of Beijing, broadcast live on a giant screen in Tian’anmen Square on 10 October 2004.
Bernard Lavilliers gives us his Carnets de bord
Bernard Lavilliers returns to the music scene with Carnets de bord, an album spiced with the rhythms and scents of far-flung places. From Central America to Brazil by way of Cape Verde, the firebrand singer takes us to distant lands. Flanked by his guitar, which he affectionately dubs his "frangine d’amour" [love sister], he touches us with his poetic wand. Especially delicious is the tender duet with Cape Verdian singer, Cesaria Evora!
Manu Tchao picks up his pen
He makes his artistic come-back with a disconcerting object - a book/record born of a collaboration with Wozniak, a Polish cartoonist on the famous satirical newspaper, Le Canard enchaîné. In Sibérie m’était contée [I was told about Siberia], Manu Tchao changes register; Latin warmth gives way to a wintery stroll through the faubourgs of Paris. 122 illustrated pages and twenty-two songs to reveal a new side to the singer of La Mano Negra.
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