Amazing, absolument incroyable. The first of the "excursions" that are available for us to take here took me and about 100 other CIDEF students to a magical place called Puy de Fou. We were herded like cattle with 15 thousand French people [when we were leaving it felt like a concert, just before the main act is about to come out, and everyone is trying to push to the front of the stage. I'm starting to think that the French don't have bubles... it can be a little unnerving to have someone breathing down your neck, upset because you're not pressed up against the person in front of you, but I digress.]
So, what is Puy de Fou? We sat in bleachers, outside, and in front of us: three windmills [in various places], two castles, a small house, a lake, some shrubbery... here this is easier. Voici the stage:
Or rather, the stage:
[Note the storm clouds, we sure did.]
It was late, and it was dark... and cold... and it really seemed like it was going to rain. Which, now that I've seen the show, would have been such a bummer, because there was a LOT of fire. In fact, they burned a building down [on purpose]. Welcome to France, where political is normal. It was an extremely interesting experience from a comparative culture perspective. It was a story about a family line, being recounted by a man in 1916 about his ancestors from the Middle Ages and to his son, about why all the men in their family have had the same name, lived in the same place, etc. It's a story of war, vengeance, recouping post war, then more war, more vengeance, more recouping post war, and right when you think there could be a happy ending to this cycle that got very depressing very quickly, it ended in true French ciné fashion, wish a sad ending [at least in my opinion] and more war. The father telling the story goes to war near the end, and dies. His béret is presented to his wife, who turns and sadly, though proudly, gives it to her son. They won the war but lost their husbands, fathers, brothers. He takes the béret, puts it on, saluting the parade of soldiers going by him and symbolically joins them. The saddest part, at least for me [there may have been a tear or two...] was when the young son walks out into the street after his father has gone to war and meets a young girl. Her parents have died, her name is Victoire, and I'm not sure if I've ever heard a story from a voice quite so cute and sad as hers. The kids talked about the war, and I lost it. At least Victiore didn't get shot. The last time a young girl was in the street in the middle of one of the wars earlier in the play, there was a very dramatic scene of her running, trying to find somewhere to hide, and then getting shot and falling to the ground.
I have to say though, le spectacle du puy du fou was more than spectacular, it was so, so well done it's hard to even put into words. It was moving, it was funny, it was scary, it was amazing. I was impressed to say the least, oh, and there were animals. The animals deserve a whole separate description of their own because they amazed me. There were geese, pigs, goats, donkeys, sheep... animals.
They were insanely well trained, and the best part, by far, was at the end of one of the war scenes. The general of the losing side was riding and everyone else was frozen. The spotlight was on him as he raised his sword in the air trying to rally whatever troops were left, and then, a gun shot. AND THE HORSE. FELL. OVER. It knew it had been "shot" and it "died." It got up at the end of the freeze frame to trot happily back to its trainer but it was so presh, when it was "dead" it kept lifting his head to see, "Can I get up yet?"
And then: the fireworks. There was a lot of fire going on, lanterns, gunshots, canons, buildings and horse carts on fire [even a dummy on a horse on fire at one point], people juggling with fire, angry mobs with torches, you get the idea. But there were also fireworks, and they were like nothing that I have ever seen before. Do you know those fireworks that are "willow trees"? They're gold, and they glitter, and they linger for a few minutes, just a little longer than the rest? I have always loved those, but they have fireworks ehre that are gold, they glitter, they light up the whole sky, and they linger, for-ev-er. The sky looked much like a Hannah Montana t-shirt, and I was speechless.
Kind of needless to say, I had an awesome time. It was really something special and I'll remember it for a long, long time.
[For the record, this blog is a week old, I finally figured out what was wrong with Blogger.]
Au revoir.
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