Caution: candy viewing on the horizon. The story of a crazy English granny turned DJ, alias Mamy Rock, is the subject of a tasty documentary, presented this week, as part of the Quebec Intergenerational Week.
And it looks on its own. Good music, quirky character and inspiring moral included. Sit back and enjoy, it’s good for the soul.
Perhaps you had already heard of her, she was a hit during her dazzling lightning career: from Paris to Ibiza via Shanghai and Miami, everyone snatched Ruth Flowers from her real name, the DJ unlikely to looks d’enfer, which made the crowds dance with its original techno mixes, but above all its thunderous energy.
The word is weak: between 2010 and 2014, the 80-year-old lady with sunglasses toured the planet and gave more than 500 concerts.
She was unstoppable. As proof: she even died in 2014, sitting comfortably in her living room in Bristol, her trusty suitcase by her side and her passport well in her pocket.
“As if she was ready to leave again…”, remembers with tenderness Orel Simon, the director of the documentary, broadcast for the first time on Planète + on Sunday, who was the producer of Mamy Rock as a bonus.
“I spent five years of my life as a producer, he recalls, in a telephone interview given last week. And during these five years, I always had a camera on me to document this exceptional adventure. […] She had incredible energy. […] Me, sometimes, I was tired, but her, she always wanted to continue… ”
IMAGE PROVIDED BY PLANET+
Grandma Rock had a looks as farted as studied.
I was very sad to learn that [sa mort]. For me, she was indestructible.
Orel Simon, director and producer of Grandma Rock
Why this film, almost ten years later? Orel Simon had years of images to organize, scenarios to edit, he justifies. And then, a few years ago, invited to the Oscars in Los Angeles, he met a clairvoyant. Pardon the esoteric anecdote, but it is not without interest. “I never told this story, slips our interlocutor. My wife is a big believer in that. Me ? Less. “Anyway, the guy in question, a Frenchman, apparently known to the local artistic community, said to him:” There is a person who wants you to make a film about her, paraphrase the producer. You really have to do it. What she went through can be a good example for a lot of people…”
” Everything is possible ”
And it is a fact. Whether we believe in this vision or not, the adventure of Ruth Flowers is certainly unique and fragmented, but no less promising. “Anything is possible”, sums up Orel Simon. Such is the moral of this impossible story, and nevertheless true of true.
He still sees himself meeting this grandmother (who once launched a joke to her grandson this premonitory sentence: “I could mix on your birthday!”). Not only was she “cool” and had an immense musical culture, but their energies really “matched”. “I thought she had real potential,” sums up the producer. It feels when someone has a flame. She had a dynamism, she is endearing, funny and very communicative. »
Of course, she didn’t become a DJ on her own. We see it on the screen, there was a lot of teamwork to teach him technology (his main challenge), the art of linking pieces, standing in front of a crowd. Without forgetting the creation of sound looks, as farted as studied. “And then, she brought in her mixes songs that she liked, especially Freddie Mercury […]. And then more classic things of her time, like Ella Fitzgerald. […] We did not expect this kind of mix. “And obviously, it really hooked.
Above the beat that she actually mastered wonderfully, she “really” had something to say, concludes Orel Simon. “She carried a positive message for our time. Yes, it is very important to respect the elderly […], and everything is also possible in life. We can reinvent ourselves. If we believe it. […] That’s what she says, it’s a very beautiful message. And it really is her. »
Sunday, May 21, at 8:30 p.m., on Planète+
Note that Planète+ offers the next day, Monday, May 22, at 9 p.m., Re-Beautifula reflection on the notion of old age on the big screen, with, among other big names in French cinema, Léa Drucker, Anne Brochet and Anouk Grinberg.