Win or Die could just have been a bad movie, a completely failed period piece of fiction. If only it had been just that. But there is much more than a film in old fashions behind this production. The feature film is a pure product of the French park and all that it represents most problematic. Because yes, the Puy du Fou, the second most visited park in France behind Disneyland Paris, is far from being only a good-natured place with spectacular shows purely for entertainment.Le Puy du FakeAlso see on KonbiniFounded in 1978 by former Vendée deputy and European deputy Philippe de Villiers, Puy du Fou was first a single show, called Cinescenie. Faced with the many spectators, the show gradually becomes a theme park… and a success. It attracts more than two million visitors each year, has twice won the prize for best amusement park in the world and has undeniable know-how in the art of entertainment. The shows there are impressive and of real visual quality. But his approach to history has stirred up the anger of historians, who since the 1980s have been trying to debunk the approximations staged by the park. The Puy du Fou was still only a nocturnal spectacle that two historians were already worried about its counter-revolutionary rewriting. French historians, has definitively brought to light the errors and simplifications made by the park in the service of diffuse propaganda. The survey proves that at Puy du Fou, “the devil is in the details”, themed hotels with Manichean or even reactionary scenarios, shows, of which Philippe de Villiers is the only pen. Above all, the four authors observe frankly the cultural and political struggle of man: “Philippe de Villiers insists on the fact that the very creation of the park comes first of all from a moral debt towards the ‘Vendée genocide’”. A term widely refuted by historians, one of whom explains at length on the Mediapart blog. Puy du Fou is not just a theme park, it is a place of soft power finely led by members of the very right fringe of France. Remember that Philippe de Villiers is the founder of the sovereignist Mouvement pour la France party. of a politician on a mission, who discredits academics in his books, who dreams with nostalgia of a royalist France at the service of the elites and fantasizes about happy believing villages where class struggles and women hardly exist. feeds the obsession of a fringe of the most extreme right of a France of yesteryear, of a powerful France – of the monarchy, in reality. It is not for nothing that during the preview of the film, many supporters shouted, in the first degree, “long live the king”. This is the ideology advocated by the park, and the biased vision that it tells of the History of France – in any case, of the precise episode of the post-Revolution. The release of the film has the merit of launch a necessary debate on this place. Because the Puy du Fou has a huge sympathy capital. A lot of French stars go there and there are many television programs that partner with the place for large audiences. This was the case for M6 in 2021 again with Patrick Bruel, Amel Bent or Bénabar in the cast. The name is almost part of French popular culture, to the point of making it an incomprehensible exception during the Covid. The park had obtained an exemption from the prefect to accommodate 9,000 spectators instead of the 5,000 authorized. An exception deemed unfair, while the cultural community was going through one of the worst crises in its history. Philippe de Villers had even thanked President Macron for “having transferred the Puy du Fou file to the Defense Council”. -self-elitistPuy du Fou is a family story: founded by the father, it is now the son, Nicolas de Villiers, who is its president – and with him, his ideologies. The latter is a businessman making a major contribution to the expansion of the Puy du Fou empire. Nicolas de Villiers is also one of the producers of Vaincre ou Die. The film is the adaptation of a show in the park, Le Dernier panache, the fictionalized story of General Charette, in 1793, the height of the Vendée war and his fight against the wicked revolutionaries – unfortunately, we barely caricature. The substance and form of the film having already been widely analyzed, let’s see who is in charge of this turnip. The film pays tribute to the 200,000 people who died during this Vendée war during The Terror. The problem with the film is that it begins with the interview of three historians then, in the process, begins its story, without transition. The message is clear: “What we are going to show you is History”. And that’s the whole problem. War crimes were committed during this period of French history, it’s undeniable. The era is even still studied and analyzed. But Conquer or Die claims to present itself as an answer. Worse, an educational tool is made available (it is once again disputed by a historian who worked on the film at the very beginning of the project before retiring). The two directors, Vincent Mottez and Paul Mignot, are novices who sign here their first feature film, which would have cost less than 5 million euros. The producers are only men linked to the Puy du Fou park. Is it serious to make a film like that?Guillaume Lancereau, historian specializing in the French Revolution and co-author of Puy du Faux answers us: “Using historical facts to produce a story is not serious at all . We’ve been doing this forever. Alexandre Dumas did. We also have the right to have a documentary approach with specialists. The problem with the film is that it mixes the two. This movie was originally supposed to be a documentary, but they finally made it into a movie. You should have chosen. The film explains nothing. The goal is not to tell history, but to present values in struggle. The aristocracy against the republic. The good, the bad. The historians’ interview at the beginning of the film serves as an argument of authority, that’s what’s embarrassing.”A distributor with clear religious ambitions So we know the producers, but it’s perhaps the film’s distributor who is the most interesting. It is thanks to him that the film is shown in theaters in France – on more than 230 prints, which is really substantial. It is a box called Saje Distribution, which specializes in the distribution of Christian films. A prolific company since in a few years, Saje has multiplied the broadcasts and even outright launched its soberly called Christian Films platform. For 8.99 euros per month, you have access to a catalog of more than 150 films of the Faith Based genre, films about faith. As the platform widely promotes Conquer or Die, the evangelizing will of the work is clear. It is not its director who would say the opposite: Hubert de Torcy is the founder of Saje and he leaves absolutely no doubt about the objective of his approach. “Cinema is for me a unique medium for announcing the Gospel to as many people as possible.” Since 2014, Saje has been the only distributor in France to specialize in Christian films. Believe us, there was a niche to take. The genre is a hit in the United States, a country whose vision of evangelization through the media greatly inspires the distributor. Moreover, he said in 2016, in KTO Mag (lol): “My project is to contribute to the evangelization of our country through culture and the media”. In 2019, he split from a mind-blowing platform in La Croix to denounce “the manipulation” of François Ozon’s film on the sexual abuse of Father Preynat in Lyon through the film Grace à Dieu. In complete relaxation, Hubert de Torcy launches: “It is very regrettable that François Ozon preferred caricature rather than addressing what he perceives as an ambiguity.” The rest, when we know everything that Vaincre ou mort contains, is aberrant: “François Ozon leads us to believe that he has done a quasi-documentary work, claiming to have reproduced the content of the messages exchanged verbatim. The insistence on reading these letters in voiceover is indigestible, but it’s a good way to put the viewer to sleep by making him believe that everything he sees is true. All the names, on the Church side, are the real ones. All the criticisms expressed are those that apply to the Puy du Fou film. Except that de Torcy gives his personal opinion on facts judged by justice, while a real investigative work has been carried out by historians on the inaccuracies of Puy du Fou that his teams are trying to pass off as historical truths. By looking a little, it is also easy to find that Hubert de Torcy was a signatory of a petition for a constitutional complaint against marriage for all in 2014. We want to say: the mass is said. A few days ago, he was writing a column for the diocese of Monaco to talk about Vaincre ou Die (without specifying his role). Among the Puy du Fou production team, there is moreover a formerly of Saje, who complained to Allociné in 2019 that films about faith are not as mainstream as in the United States. The fault, according to him, with “a stricter vision of secularism in France which does not always make things easier”. It is therefore the fault of secularism, not of ideology. A developing empire Puy du Fou is more than a theme park. It’s an empire. This first film is only one step in its expansion. The place is already being exported, notably to Spain, where historians have criticized the writing of the show for exactly the same things. Establishments in Italy and Austria are also to come. Further still, Puy du Fou has just signed a 75 million dollar contract with the Cherokee nation in Tennessee, United States. When we know the situation of indigenous peoples in American society, can we imagine that a very right-wing French company can pay homage to their story of oppression by American governments for centuries? The planned show will center on the Cherokees who fought for the United States during the First World War. Puy du Fou has not finished spreading. Neither do his critics.
