After the brilliant series Can You Hear Me? Télé-Québec releases another gem from its box, L’air d’aller, a dramatic comedy that follows four young adults suffering from cystic fibrosis.
Posted at 7:15am
Wow, that’s Jojo, that’s all! Four patients, including one who dies at the end of the first episode, are the ideal way to soften the harshness of current Quebec television, be ironic while sipping your almond milk latte. pfft
Put aside this caustic cynicism, readers of small faith. Despite its heavy subject matter, L’air d’aller is brimming with humour, tenderness and truth. It’s far from being as sad as TVA’s Les Bracelets Rouges, shall we say. It’s touching without being cheesy, it’s poignant without needlessly crying, and it’s very funny, yes, yes.
Télé-Québec already published the excellent first episode on its website on Monday. On traditional television, L’air d’aller will be shown on Thursdays at 9pm from March 23rd.
Before we dive into the plot, a few words about the author of L’air d’aller, Jean-Christophe Réhel, 33-year-old poet and novelist who published the very nice semi-autobiographical book Ce qu’on respire sur Tatooine , im year 2018.
His lyrics contain a lot of sensitivity, self-mockery and references to popular cultures such as The Lord of the Rings, The Wizard of Oz or Harry Potter. “Hermione’s a bitch,” even one of the main characters complained.
Jean-Christophe Réhel, a screenwriter to remember, also lives with cystic fibrosis. His lungs function at 50% of the capacity of a healthy person. He has injected several plots of his own life into the four protagonists of L’air d’aller, who form a very endearing quartet, aware of the sword of Damocles that threatens them all.
Katrine (Catherine St-Laurent), eccentric and outgoing, is waiting for a lung transplant. If she doesn’t get them within five months, she will die. Fueled by an overwhelming urge to breathe, Katrine will lead her comrades into a bundle of madness and nonsense.
“I want to live, I want to make the most of every half second,” pleads Katrine, who refuses to be pitied.
It kicks off with a magic mushroom trip – hello STAT – in the first episode, organized by impulsive tattoo artist Gabriel (Antoine Olivier Pilon), who has hardly any symptoms of his lung disease.
Shy Jimmy (Joakim Robillard) spits blood and falls into the category of hypochondriacs. He hates his job at the milk bar Le Cornet Polaire. Devoted Cindy (Noémie Leduc-Vaudry) is going through a complicated family situation, particularly with her father (Vincent Graton), who has cancer. On the heart side it is the desert. But Cindy never gives up, both boys and girls.
In episode three, the four travel to Vermont to buy an illegal drug that would prolong Katrine’s life. This road trip turns into a multi-sensory experience that includes sex toys, a mourning dress and meeting CocoChanel69. The rich soundtrack oscillates between Where Is My Mind by the Pixies, death metal by Shades of Dusk and Les temps est fous by Daniel Bélanger.
Each episode of L’air d’aller also includes a short danced segment depicting the recovery of their bodies by the four heroes gently releasing them. It looks weird on paper, but these poetic scenes fit perfectly into this story of emancipation, the good old coming of age.
L’air d’aller accurately illustrates how cystic fibrosis stymied the personal ambitions and romantic journey of our four friends. These young people are 25 to 30 years old and mostly live with their parents. The still incurable disease caused her lifeline to branch off.
In addition to the central quartet, L’air d’aller brings together talented actors such as Anick Lemay, Marc Béland, Sylvie Moreau, Denis Bernard and Iannicko N’Doua.
Gossip plateau, at the end. A comedian cannot cough on command and realistically because he is crying or laughing. Director Sarah Pellerin therefore recorded real wet coughs and crackling breathing sounds of sick people in order to insert them into the sound montage and thus create the perfect illusion.
Really, L’air d’aller breathes beauty and goodness into our TV.
sun sun!
Is it the effect of the time change and the later setting sun? Sunday ratings, always high in winter, declined as spring approached.
One thing is for sure, it’s not the Oscars, watched by an average of 343,000 people between 8pm and midnight on CTV, that has turned the ecosystem upside down.
PHOTO FROM THE SHOW’S FACEBOOK PAGE
Nathalie Simard in Get Me Out of Here!
TVA retains the top spot with Sortez-moi d’ici!, which gathered 1,342,000 fans in front of their posts. Voice fared less well with its 1,206,000 viewers. It must be said that the fight song stage is the least exciting of the competition. The numbers of the TVA tele hook are likely to increase directly on Sundays.
At Radio-Canada, 776,000 believers attended the “For Everyone Talks About It” mass, while 571,000 followers prayed the raccoon thief would not return to “Big Brother Celebrities.”