Festivals - Canneseries 2020 : La Flamme imposes itself as a cult series in the making

By Mulder, 09 october 2020

"Girl, girl, girl, girl, girl
You gonna set me on fire, mmh
My brain is flaming
I don't know which way to go, yeah" - Burning love - Elvis Presley

The benefits of laughter cannot be repeated enough in a difficult period brought on by a continuing pandemic, information that constantly reminds us of the fragility of our society, but also of our future, which is getting darker every day. However, our cinemas are no longer able to fill up and spectators seem to be more inclined towards streaming platforms (Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Disney +) that offer us a wide range of entertainment that can appeal to each and every one of us.

However, we must recognize that, like many, we are part of the generation of Les Nuls' troupe whose numerous parodies were not only based on inspired interpretations, innovative ideas and sketches that remain in our memories for a long time to come. The series La Flamme regains all this energy and is not only a French adaptation of the cult American series Burning live which parodied reality shows like The Bachelor and The Bachelorette. Created and written by Erica Oyama with executive producer Ben Stiller as executive producer (he also played a second leading role in this series).

It is easy to understand the desire of actor, screenwriter and director Jonathan Cohen to revisit the series Burning Love and also bring all his humor and insolence to it. With the scriptwriting support of Jérémie Galan and Florent Bernard, the Flame finds the perfect approach to make fun of the superficial side of reality TV and imposes itself not only through its numerous hard-hitting dialogues, a perfect sense of rhythm and the best female cast of the year (even French cinema seems unable to compete with this series). As not to be impressed at the sight of this female cast including most of the best French actors with Ana Girardot, Géraldine Nakache, Doria Tillier, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Camille Chamoux, Leïla Bekhti, Céline Sallette, Laure Calamy, Léonie Simaga, Marie-Pierre Casey and Florence Foresti. The second male roles are not forgotten with notably Vincent Dedienne, Pierre Niney, Gilles Lellouche, Ramzy Bedia, Vincent Macaigne, François Civil, Stephan Wojtowicz, Laurent Bateau, Giovani Farfalle, Serge Bagdassarian, Orelsan and Jérémie Galan.

Forgetting the politically correct, the screenwriters do not hesitate to present original female characters, including a blind photographer, a beautician ready for anything, a beautiful homeless woman, a zookeeper with the heart of a chimpanzee? The short duration of each of the episodes makes us want to discover them all in succession (we were able to discover the first three at Canneseries).

Accustomed to perfectly camped second roles, the comedy Jonathan Cohen literally burst the screen here and makes of his character of airplane pilot a surprising individual, with a whole character and who seems ready to do anything to find the one of these thirteen women who will know how to steal his heart. Contrary to these reality shows that don't catch our attention, this series regains all the strength of the best comedies. One will think in particular of the film of Les Nuls La cité de la peur (1994) but also the cult humor of ZAZ (David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker). This series has everything to become cult and to see its dialogues taken up in quotations.

This series also shows the importance of having excellent artists to give life to a series that is certainly in the continuity of the American one (Buning Love) but revisited with the undeniable talent of an artist who was finally able to succeed in a universe that is close to his heart and surround himself perfectly with actors who take a real pleasure in playing a counter role. We can't wait to discover the ten other episodes...

Synopsis :
In this season of The Flame, the heart to be taken is that of Marc, airline pilot. Life has given him everything... except a co-pilot. During 9 weeks, in a sublime villa, 13 women are going to compete to seduce him and try to light in him... The Flame. Then, arm the slides, check the opposite door... Marc is going to take his suitors to 7th heaven!
La flamme (2020; 9 episodes)
Directed by Jonathan Cohen, Jérémie Galan
Produced by Benjamin Bellecour, Jonathan Cohen
Executive producers : Ben Stiller and Nicky Weinstock
Written by Jonathan Cohen, Jérémie Galan, Florent Bernard
Starring Jonathan Cohen, Ana Girardot, Géraldine Nakache, Doria Tillier, Vincent Dedienne, Adèle Exarchopoulos, Camille Chamoux, Leïla Bekhti, Céline Sallette, Laure Calamy, Léonie Simaga, Marie-Pierre Casey, Florence Foresti, Youssef Hajdi, Pierre Niney, Gilles Lellouche, Ramzy Bedia, Vincent Macaigne, François Civil, Stephan Wojtowicz, Laurent Bateau, Giovani Farfalle, Serge Bagdassarian, Orelsan, Jérémie Galan, Angèle
Music by François Villevieille, Romain Vissol
Edited by Simon Colin, Stephan Couturier, Eric Jacquemin, Vincent Marchand
Production companies : Les films entre 2 et 4, Makingprod
Release date : October 12, 2020 (France)
Running time : 26 minutes

Photos : Copyright Julien Panié - MakingProd / Les Films Entre 2 et 4 / Canal+