The Netflix series dynamites the history of France with fantastic sauce

The revolution opens with a quote lent to Napoleon: “History is a fabric of lies on which we agree. Then a voice whispers, “They say the story is told by the victors.” We forget to say that it is rewritten over time, transformed by books, reinvented by those who have not experienced it. “

The concept of the new French production of Netflix, put online Friday, is thus doubly underlined. The eight episodes offer a reinterpretation of the French Revolution as you would never have imagined it on the benches of the school. What if the storming of the Bastille had been caused by an epidemic, bearing the name of “blue blood”, having contaminated the nobility and urged the people to defend themselves?

A fantasy revolution

This revisionism through the prism of fantasy and horror could make more than one Stéphane Bern jump. “A historian has reread the screenplay so that there is overall credibility, but this uchrony is above all a film lover’s dream”, explains to 20 Minutes Aurélien Molas, creator of the series. Generation child Starfix, he fantasizes more about the 18th century in front of the Pact of wolves of Christophe Gans than through the bombastic vision ofA people and their king by Pierre Schoeller.

“We did not stray that far from reality: there was bloodshed, clashes, the weakest oppressed by the powerful. The basis remains the same, it is the revolt of the people for their emancipation. What we brought is the fantastic side, says Amir El Kacem, who plays one of the main roles, the doctor Pierre Guillotin. The goal was to talk to the youth of 2020 and make them understand that we must have a common goal. “

“Anachronisms are assumed”

At the time of the “yellow vests” and the Covid-19 pandemic, the eight episodes find several resonances. If these echoes are involuntary, the fact remains that the theme of ideals has tormented Aurélien Molas for a while. It has been several years since he had in mind to “twist” a historic event. “The trigger came in 2005 with the riots in the suburbs: the method was questionable, but the fight was legitimate”, he explains. He says he was marked by this youth who seemed to him “not knowing how to express his anger” and the question of revolt became his “author’s obsession”. He has treated it in particular in his novels, including the thriller The eleventh plague, published in 2010.

The challenge of The revolution is to find the balance between the representation of the past, its current accents and the codes of the genre. “This goes through the modernity of the casting, the global vision and the fact, at the level of the dialogues, of being at the extreme limit without ever crossing the bar of the pastiche, continues the creator of the series. We respect certain codes but we wanted it to ring true, not to be theatrical. “” Anachronisms are accepted, adds Marilou Aussilloux, who plays the aristocrat Elise de Montargis. The line that was set for us was to keep our naturalness and our contemporary side in the language. I made sure to compromise and not to speak too loosely because my character’s status did not allow it. “

The plot of season 1 takes place in 1787, two years before the storming of the Bastille. If the sequel has not yet been formalized by Netflix, there is no doubt that Aurélien Molas has it in mind. He was fascinated by the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and especially its first article: “All men are born and remain free and equal in law. “” It is the most beautiful sentence in the history of mankind, he believes. When did the spirits come together to achieve this? That’s what inspired me: I wanted to represent, through twists and turns, such as a youth coming to the idea that men are born free and equal in rights. This sentence is the most universal, it will remain until the end of time. There is something beautifully inspiring about it. “