What to think of Salam, sermon by Mélanie Diam’s broadcast on Amazon Prime Video?

A miracle, a real one? While the cinemas are desperately emptying, the autobiographical documentary by Mélanie Diam’s, broadcast two days in theaters in July, attracted 90,000 people. The star has admirers who have not forgotten either her hits or her suffering. The public was also filled with curious Muslim spectators who were not unhappy to see this conversion displayed on the big screen without revealing “awra” (what human beings must hide out of modesty in Islam). Some, on the contrary, were scandalized. The writer Kamel Daoud, for example, estimated in the magazine Point than the movie “will delight Islamist propaganda”.

Hello starts, far from these quarrels, with rap and the love of words. Mélanie Diam’s, whose real name is Mélanie Georgiades, recounts her rise and then her fall. A known refrain taken up in chorus by the relatives of the singer filmed in close-ups. The rapper has her heart filled with “ existential pains, she said in her soft voice. Before discussing his ” bipolar disorders “. The doctors she meets on her way know above all how to prescribe medication for her, she laments. The nights are hard. Diam’s is thinking of ending his life.

But Allah saves her. Not psychiatrists. Is this why the former rapper does not dwell on the psychological chapter? To find out more, we refer you to his interview conducted this summer by a Augustin Trapenard kinder than ever. The former singer evokes a “inner prison, which causes us to sink into psychological illnesses, chaos, an abyssal void”. She continues: “When you’re empty and you’re not well, you can’t put words to what you feel. We are our own executioner. The questions that plague us come from within. It is a complex spiral. »

Theatrical realization

We remember, the photo showing her in 2009 leaving a mosque veiled, had caused surprise. It was then a stolen shot. The singer, at the time, did not know where she was. We measure, by looking Hello, the violence of such media coverage. Diam’s wanted to avoid the one that could have surrounded the release of the documentary and not come into contradiction with its new “way of life”. She only agreed, or so she says, to make this documentary because others would otherwise have taken hold of her story.

Which explains why he is so self-centered. Directed with Anne Cissé and Houda Benyamina, produced by Brut., this hagiography is theatrical. Images of savannah and seabed follow one another. Mélanie Diam’s claims to have understood, thanks to her faith, what place was hers in “the universe”. But the forties does not explain why this confession convinced her, more than another type of spirituality. Let’s face it, the documentary looks less like a profession of faith than a well-lit showcase of the most universal values ​​of Islam. Did she want to break down certain prejudices?

Without provocation, we would have been just as curious to know what view Mélanie Diam’s, who constantly speaks of charity, has of the criminalization of homosexuality, facing the death penalty in Saudi Arabia, where she resides. Such was of course not the purpose of this story, less fiery than its tubes The Dumpling WhereNight confessions and less outrageous than its detractors say. It will first interest fans of the rapper. In other words, he will mostly preach to converts.

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