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On screens across Normandy and Picardy, from Amiens to Avranches, the SRNP ident played. A voice. "Ce soir sur SRNP1, le Festival International de la Chanson, en live d'Amiens. Attention, cette emission contient les clignotements". The warning about flashing images was not all that unusual, and indeed it always followed the yearly introduction to the World Hit Festival (normally on SRNP2, a hint if you needed it), but it was what lay in between that was key; it was going to be live from Amiens. Amiens! No need to mention this or that host country as they had done for so many years before. No, it was being held in the capital of Picardy itself. The Normands and Picards had been waiting a long time for this moment. They had not hosted since Avranches hosted the contest in WHF33, and, more importantly, the country had finally broken the infamous "curse" that it had seemingly brought upon itself after the disaster that was the hosting of the 24th World Hit Festival when it won. Frederic Duchamps and Annabelle Vallence had brought the trophy home, and now it would be their turn to help run proceedings, and ultimately, to pass the trophy on to whoever was able to win over the hearts and minds of professional juries and millions of telespectateurs across the multiverse. And so, as that ident played, there was a sense that a lot had led to this moment, amongst the home crowd, amongst the staff at SRNP, and amongst Frederic and Annabelle, waiting behind scenes at the Mégacité conference centre where they would run the show that would unfold just next door at the Zénith d'Amiens.
There was perhaps a little time to ponder the absurdity of it all as now the broadcast went multiverse wide, and the opening ident of the World Hit Festival itself and the official theme of the contest played. Sure, the country had had a very successful run over the previous five contests or so, under the benevolent leadership of their lord and saviour Simone Derrida, as the team running proceedings in SRNP had come to know her affectionately, if teasingly. And, indeed, the country had come very close, indeed losing a tie for first place just as they had back in WHF32. In a way, no one expected to ever actually win, even as SRNP had arranged plans with the city of Amiens following an internal bidding process, just in case. The brief glimmer of hope, and the bucketloads of caution, had finally been justified. Now, all they needed to do was to run the show. And, indeed, things were going smoothly. Very smoothly. As stated, the ident of the World Hit Festival played out and fell into the ears of millions, and set the hearts of the artists waiting nervously in a conference centre in Amiens for their time, their moment, pounding even faster than they already had been, if that were possible. The theme reached its great, final crescendo, and then, a moment of quiet...
tune (0:30-1:35)
Eschewing for the most part the traditional opening performances customary at the World Hit Festival, instead, SRNP opted to prepare a short film to open the show, a journey across Picardy, and Normandy and Picardy more widely, and through time to show its heritage and culture, following the narrative of a young girl from the coast going inland to Amiens, the host city, but also highlighting the country's historical narrative, through high points and low, all culminating in the show being held that evening. And so we begin, in the town of Le Crotoy, at the mouth of the Somme, it having passed throughout Picardy including Amiens itself (thus establishing the link and the narrative drive from early on). This short section of the opening was named "A Travers la Mer" (Across the Sea), and is set to a tune composed by the Picard folk artist Michel Gaulfier, drawing on a series of folk tunes and motifs to create a calm, gentle, almost stargazing opening piece, as though you were looking out to sea, in part wistfully, in part with hope. Indeed, this short section opened with a focus on the mouth of the Somme at low tide, in which it is actually possible to cross the sands over to Saint-Valery-sur-Somme, and showed families and young children having fun, running around, that sort of thing, with the occasional look both out to sea and inland, where the river, whether by the canals built to facilitate travel or the thick marshes that the Somme is well known for, came from, passing through from Amiens. Then, using timelapse imagery, the video showed the tide rise and cover the sands, slowly zooming in towards the promenade looking over the bay until eventually a young woman, aged about twenty or so, could be seen looking out across the water, out to and beyond the sea. Dreaming. Hoping. Longing, perhaps. But her goal was not to be to go beyond, not this time. And so she looked once again inland, across to Saint-Valery, over the small sailing ships that had taken to the water, and beyond, inland. She would be going upriver instead...
tune (1:35-5:17)
A brief moment of silence. Yet some, swiftly following, the first twinkles of the ivories that opened the next section of the opening video, "Sur la route d'amiens" (On the Road to Amiens), the first part of a two part piece, the second to follow on from this, by Amiens based composer and artist Hugo de Beaulieu, who won a commission for the pieces and indeed helped influence the wider artistic direction and narrative of this opening video following it. Hugo, aged 35, is originally from Bayeux in Normandy, but has made his home in the capital of the Picard Republic for the last ten years, where he has made a name for himself through his bringing together of his classical training with more electronic elements, and indeed he has even collaborated with rap and hiphop artists in the past including at the prestigious Concours de la College de Cherbourg pour la Musique (Cherbourg College Music Contest), the biggest internal musical event, and indeed TV event, of the year (albeit slightly marginalised this year by the whole, you know, WHF thing going on). In many ways the piece he has composed for WHF in two parts is very much reflective of his general style, and to the observant viewer, his influence on the wider production will be noticeable too. In any case, SRNP were very glad to have such a vital artist be part of the creative team, showcasing the best of Picard talent.
But what good had that talent been put to? Ah, now there's a question! Time for us to return back to what was actually going on methinks. (OOC: For your benefit, I will provide rough timings for the descriptions, see below).
1:38-2:17 : And what was going on was that our female protagonist, Amelie, was slowly wandering about the bustling streets of Le Crotoy, the famous restaurants full to taste the world-class food available, especially the seafood that Normandy and Picardy more generally is world-famous for. Indeed, as she passed one of them, she even pinched a mussle from the pan of a family enjoying their Moules Frites, the mussels being as fresh as you could hope for (not of course that any of this extraneous information would have been available to the viewers, who would rather simply see a young girl pinch someon's dinner). In any case, the opening section showed off the small Picard town, an image of ordinary life for ordinary people in this little piece of paradise. And yet, this clearly was not enought for Amelie. She was heading home, outside which was a proper classic Picard and indeed more generally French car, the Citroën DS, ready to leave this little time behind. The view followed Amelie as she ran inside her house, running about, bringing together her things, the TV on in the background, which was focused on briefly, showing the moment Frederic Duchamps and Annabelle Vallence won the last contest (even though it would have been night-time in Normandy and Picardy when that was broadcast and it was definitely day outside in this VT). Having grabbed everything, it was time for her to grab her moment.
2:18-2:35: And here we go! Throwing a suitcase into the back of an old-style car and getting behind the steering wheel, it was time for Amelie to
2:35-3:32: As we follow her on her journey out, through the coastal plains, there were a series of shots of cyclists riding along the Tour de la Baie de Somme cycling route alongside the road, cycling alongside Amelie and her car, and being then left behind as she carried on further inland. She passed on through the little town of Noyelles-sur-Mer, not a large settlement by any means but simply the first reached on the course of her journey. Indeed, this certainly wouldn't be Amelie's final destination, she had not given up Le Crotoy for a small little village. In any case, this allowed us to see the Chemin de Fer de la Baie de Somme [Somme Bay Railway] steaming past. Again, she soon left this behind and took to the open road, and there were a mixture of shots, some showing Amelie having a wonderful time, some focusing on the surroundings, including the various little towns and settlements she passed through, and the people leading their lives, live musical performances taking place in the background, people queuing up outside a boulangerie, all the typical features of Picard (and Normand) life.
3:32-4:04 : At this point Amelie reached Abbeville, the capital of the historical region of Ponthieu and the more broad 'coastal region' of Picardy, and it is here where the past, the key element of this opening section more generally, begins to slowly emerge, the heritage that Picardy is built on slowly beginning to show itself, coming from behind the modern country it created. She drove into the main square in the centre of Abbeville and got out, looking around, and from there the audience were shown a series of views of life in the city. Some definite hints of the general theme aforementioned came to the forth in this section, whether the look towards the Abbeville War Memorial and the 1960s Town Hall as points that stick etc., alongside the older past reflected in the city some of the sites and the like. A taste of what is to come, both for our protagonist seeking something bigger, something better, and for us, the audience too
4:04-4:50 - A return to focus back on the girl as she leaves Abbeville behind her and passes along the roads further up along the Somme, including even this far up very much some country roads, sites of the river and the marshes alongside the river, people coming along in vessels. In another definite nod to the theme going on here, pass through the Samarra Arboretum and the recreations of ancient life from the Paleolithic to the Gallo-Roman period, showing the deep historical roots of the region. Carry on through towns etc. as Amiens gets closer and closer
4:51-5:17: At this time, the history seems to burst through into the present, and the crying of accountants might faintly be heard in the background if you listen hard enough. Shells blast holes in the road around the car as CGI knights made to look like they are from the Bayeux Tapestry pass by, the faces of certain historical figures and the like seem to rapidly and disappear and the images glitch between modern footage and grainy black and white images, almost a battle going on between the two, until, as the music fades out, we are left with grainy, black and wide footage of a bombed out Amiens after the Second World War. An image of devestation. But from this there would be hope...
tune (5:18-10:10)
And so, we have travelled across Picardy and a very representative slice of its countryside and arrived in the host city itself, Amiens. Unfortunately, our parallel journey through time, or history's reaching out to us, has left us in 1945 and in the aftermath of the Second World War, which obviously had brought a great amount of toil and destruction to the country more generally. Thus, this next section was going to celebrate the hope that can come out of the desolation, to show how Amiens, as a mircocosm of all of Normandy and Picardy, was able to recover and begin to heal the wounds of war, and also managed to work its way through the trial and tribulations of its more modern history. It is a case of looking to the future, just as much as history clearly has made its mark, and about forging a new tomorrow.
5:18-5:53 - We begin with the city in ruins, but with the Cathedral standing defiant. Starting here, and throughout, there is a great amount of use of archive footage and images, in almost a documentary fashion, cataloguing the journey that the city took, intersepersed with live action clips at various point, as occured at the end of this section, where, in order to affect a change of scene, the laying down of blueprints of the design for the forecourt of the cathedral are layed across the screen from a perspective beyond it, before the camera zooms out to show a series of architects, led by Pierre Dufau, looking over and finalising the plans they had been working on since 1942
5:53-7:06 - We now move to looking at the early stages of the building of many of the now iconic landmarks of the modern Amiens, the Gare d'Amiens, the Tour Perret and the Place Gambetta, interspersed with footage of ordinary people starting to try and refashion their lives; workers going back to the factories in the Saint-Leu district, children going back to newly built schools, and people adapting to new ways of life, indeed shunning some of the new buildings that appeared over the course of the 50s and 60s (here taken as a general designation, and thus not strictly sticking to an onwards chronology, not of course that anyone even in Amiens watching would have really noticed) and, with their traditional Amiens spirit, simply deciding to hide them with other buildings.
7:06-8:03 - Time carried on, as the music in the song slowly builds, providing the forward impetus, but it is not all plain sailing for the people of Amiens. We arrive in the late 60s, and the student riots which took hold across the border in France in 1968 made their way across into Normandy and Picardy too. We are shown footage of those protesting, their signs and their banners and their marches, but also the putrefaction of rubbish as the binmen strike and among other negative effects. Meanwhile, just as before workers were shown returning to the factories, now, as time progressed in the 1970s and 80s, Amiens began to lose its industry and people lost their jobs, and the film does not shy away from showing this. And yet, within this, we see people helping each other and looking out for each other, signs of the spirit of the people of Amiens, struggling and yet still being able to find moments of joy.
8:03-8:35 - And now, we are given a rapid succession of signs of change, showing how far the city has come since the 1980s. Very early on, the Saint-Leu district saw attempts to revive and repurpose the area and bring it new life, and thus we see the University of Picardy (Amiens) buildings opening to students, and, as we move into the 1990s, the redesign of the parc Saint-Pierre and the finishing of wider renovation works and. Continuing even on into the 00s and the Gare la Vallée project to revive the Place de la Gare as a major centre of social life in the city, in very rapid succession we can see the ways the city has tried to forge a new path and to recover from the past.
8:35-8:50 - For a brief section the song seems to reach a lull, and for this section, we are given a large sweeping shot over the city of Amiens, surrounded by the marshy hortillonnages which here make their first and certainly not final appearance of the night, and simply showing just how far the city had come from the opening shots of Des Nouveaux Horizons.
8:50-10:10 - And so we go into the final leg, the final crescendo, with a rapid zoom into the city. From this, audiences around the multiverse are shown life as it is now in the modern, vibrant city that the competitors and visitors to the 57th WHF will find themselves in. There is the nightlife, performances in the various bars which are known to be scouted by eager SRNP Heads of Delegation amongst others, the bars and restaurants, some of them world famous and serving the finest Normand cuisine, going down to the hortillonnages, with all the usual shots of people being happy and jokey and the like with the Cathedral looking over in the background. Indeed, there was, overall, a general shift towards night time, although the previous sentence will show you that things were more jumbled than that as part of a reflection of the life and vigour to be found. Consequently, there was the obvious shot of the ferris wheel on the Place de la Gare, but different things like the nighttime Christmas markets on the Cathedral Forecourt, and, indeed, we moved over to the Zenith d'Amiens and the wider hosting complex, too, where the show would be being held and the acts would perform. Indeed, with a final shot looking at the Zenith from above, and as the lever de rideau finally came to an end, the waves spread across the screen and the logo of the contest appeared. There was applause in the background as these opening graphics played, whilst a very hurried Frederic Duchamps, who would be hosting the contest, made some very last minute arrangements, and his producers begged him to at least try to host competently...