Bruno Blanchet – Melancholitis | Kindness will save us

In Melancholitis, a web series of ten ten-minute episodes that practically form a feature film, nothing is going right for Guy Jodoin, who finds that “everything was better before”. Disconnected from what connects him to today’s world, he only watches on old VHS tapes what he used to do with Bruno Blanchet in the past. His old friend, who now lives in Thailand, will have to go to Quebec urgently to cheer him up…

I admit that I feel a bit like Guy Jodoin when I look at the life of Bruno Blanchet from afar, and have done so for a long time. In the 2000s, I received his columns for The Press from all over the planet, where he had started his Scare around the world. In a sort of midlife crisis, he had set off on a long journey, which ultimately transformed his life completely, and the journey still does not seem to be over.

“It is not done without sacrifice, admits Bruno Blanchet, who speaks to me by Zoom from Bangkok, where he has been living for quite some time. I am far from my family, my friends, there have been extremely difficult times. It was often dangerous, risking my life and my health. I suffered a shot being pushed around in Nepalese or Sudanese buses, being on derailed trains in the desert, and I caught all kinds of diseases. It’s beautiful once it’s done, but it was harder than I expected. I think it enriched me a lot. There is a lot more tenderness in my creation than in what I did before. I don’t want love anymore, and having fun. I can’t even watch horror movies on TV anymore…”

We just have to listen to his podcast Bruno Blanchet’s Travel Academy, selected at the last Gala Les Olivier in the category of best humorous podcast, to realize this. I cry as much as I laugh listening to all these travel anecdotes from many people, collected by Bruno Blanchet, as if humanity were much more connected than it thinks.

From his adventures, Bruno Blanchet drew four books of The jitters around the worldin addition to having hosted the shows Leave differently, eat the world and Mr. Bruno’s vacation. But with Melancholitisit’s his great return to fiction and its many characters, as well as warm reunions with friends and colleagues like Guy Jodoin, Marc Labrèche, Guylaine Tremblay or Francis Reddy – with the additional participation of Anne-Marie Losique , FouKi and Jade Barshee, among others.

If Bruno returns to his characters, it is because despite his thousand projects around the world, he is reminded of them all the time. Even if the cult show The end of the world is at seven o’clocks ended 22 years ago, there are still people who ask him to do “the little gentleman no neck” and to send it on video for a friend’s party, for example.

“Are you doing it?

– Yes. »

I burst out laughing because it doesn’t surprise me so much from him. Bruno Blanchet has created a comic and playful universe, which has the components of a children’s show, but for adults. Either we find it stupid, or we gloat, there is nothing in between.

Bruno Blanchet estimates that it would take less time to name the characters who do not return in his series, because most of his creations make at least a flash passage in Melancholitis. One thing is certain, from the first episode, the reunion between Guy Jodoin and Bruno is epic. In a minute, they are naked and rolling on the floor in each other’s arms, a far cry from toxic masculinity. “I hope it will show on screen, the love we have for doing what we do. We have gone far! »

I also wonder how Bruno Blanchet managed to convince the decision-makers with the “pitch” of this project, because a lot of things were improvised directly on the film set. “For some scenes, we never rehearsed. That’s what could be destabilizing, but it’s stimulating to give yourself the right to do that. I feel like I’m cheating fate a little bit all the time, doing something bad. I put my head on the log. But I think it’s tenderness that will save us…”

All this was born from an idea of ​​his accomplice Arnaud Bouquet, who managed to convince him by betting on one of his passions, running. Because in Melancholitis, Bruno will travel through Quebec, a bit like Terry Fox, in search of testimonies of love for his friend Guy. But he will be thwarted in his plans by the people he made fun of, and his characters who resent him for being abandoned, a group of angry people led by none other than Anne-Marie Losique. After watching only two episodes, I have no idea where this story will take us, but I was hilarious.

The experience was so pleasant that Bruno Blanchet confides that he is writing a season 2 in secret, to find his band and this pleasure of playing freely. I don’t think he suffers from melancholy or nostalgia in life, since he constantly multiplies projects and fields of interest – his new passion is “free diving”, diving without a tank, and he talks to me about it as a revelation.

But does aging scare him? “Me, I’m happy to get old,” he replies. I am lucky in Thailand to be in a country where we have a lot of respect for older people, we feel it every day. When I started in that profession, doing community radio at CIBL at the age of 24, I thought one day that I wanted to be an old joker, an old comedian. I want to come out of nowhere and people say: “He is so weird, the old man!” »

I would say that it is very well on track to arrive, for our greatest happiness.

Melancholitisfrom April 27 on Tou.TV