“Salam”, a documentary by Diam’s, Houda Benyamina and Anne Cissé.
© Black Dynamite / Brut / M by M
The return of Diam’s? Nope : Hello is a film about the new life of Mélanie Georgiadès, twelve years after the sudden end of her artistic career. The first and only woman in French hip hop to have sold more than a million albums, she remains a reference for many.
Summary for those who missed the previous episodes, or “previously in Diam’s career”, as we say in the world of series: in 2009, Diam’s rapper adored by the general public, the only woman in French hip hop to have breathed the sky high with the stratospheric sales of his previous album In my bubbleannounces the release of S.O.S.an even more intimate album than its predecessor, which ends with a ten-minute piece with a premonitory title, If it was the last.
There was little promotion for this dark project, no interview, and as a promotional launch, a photo stolen from the weekly Paris-Match showing her dressed in an abaya leaving a mosque in Gennevilliers with her husband. It is the virtual death of the artist Diam’s, who is reborn at 29 as Mélanie Georgiadès, gives up music and goes to live in the Emirates, far from show business.
Twelve years later, BrutX produced a documentary co-directed by Houda Benyamina, Anne Cissé and the ex-rapper, Hello, broadcast for a limited period in cinemas and then visible on the BrutX platform. Between development and discovery of her new life, with a visit to Africa to the orphanage she helped build with the Big Up Foundation, a charity she launched after her musical retirement, we discover the new life of Melanie.
The main interest of this atypical documentary is the words of Mélanie. Because the fans must be warned, even if they must well suspect it, there is no question here of hearing a note from the rapological repertoire of Diam’s, nor of glimpsing a simple extract from a clip.
This world before, if it is the nostalgic garden of the fans who adored My France To Me, The Dumpling (Nan Nan Generation) Where Night confessions, no longer exists for the ex-artist. However, we are entitled to images of Diam’s in 2021 at the Zénith de Paris… But the room is empty, and Mélanie walks through it remembering these armored concerts, this fervor of the public which vibrated in unison on her songs, and we even wonders for a moment if sometimes does not point out her nostalgia.
However, no regrets are expressed here, and to furnish the images, a soundtrack made up of semi-slammed poems, on a background sound lined with choirs that seem to sing psalms. “The pain in my heart, what do I do with it? And the madness in my head, what do I do with it? Besides, am I crazy or was everything crazy?”
As for the speakers, we note the presence of his mother, the footballer Nicolas Anelka, the writer Faïza Guène and the singer Vitaa, the one who has always remained close. All are framed in very close-up, with a blanket of black surrounding their faces. As for the images, instead of missing clips or concerts, long tracking shots of drones on giraffes in the savannah, waves on a beach in the early morning, like karaoke illustrations, with no connection to the narration of Mélanie apart if we consider that they represent peace and the return to nature…
She recounts once again, as in her autobiographical book published in 2013, her conversion to prayer with her friend, her depressions and her intensive consumption of drugs, but also shows, through a long telephone conversation with her father, that she abandoned his resentment towards his parent, a sign of an appeasement that was expressed both with his parents and with his new entourage. A long, very long sequence is devoted to his interactions with the children of the orphanage, as a less formal version of the kind of charity practiced by the English royal family. From Lady Diana to MC Melanie…
The spiritual choice of Mélanie Georgiadès is respectable. This film shows a woman at peace with herself trying to exorcise the last demons of her past as an artist. The one who opposed Marine Le Pen with sweet and powerful words at the same time, who was the incarnation of a generation that came to rap thanks to her unparalleled personality and her flow both frenetic and meaningful, is now another woman.
Some film critics have seen in Hello propaganda. It’s surely exaggerated, but the absence of counter-speech and the voluntary impasse made on her work mean that this documentary, more spiritual than artistic, is reserved for fans of Mélanie.
Old-school Diam’s fans will have to content themselves with listening to her records again, or waiting for another documentary on the career of the woman who broke the curse of female rap and became the first and only woman in French hip hop to sell more than a million albums.
Hellodocumentary by Diam’s, Houda Benyamina and Anne Cissé (release July 1, 2022)