It’s a song that resembles us. Ilona in the fiction of “A Perfect World”

“A Perfect World”, a song originally recorded for the Italian nightclub music market, invaded the airwaves and record stores in 2005, supported by a video of charming, dreamlike power.

In partnership with the exhibition It’s a song that resembles us – Worldwide hits of French-language popular music At the Cité internationale de la langue française in Villers-Cotterêts, these chronicles look in detail at each of the stories presented there.

When we listen A Perfect World On the radio, we see images of pigs in striped sweaters, parrots, cows, bees dancing, like in a Hollywood choreography of yesteryear. We can’t help it, even if in 2005, we weren’t children who were amazed, we were contemplating the video in which a little girl was frolicking, dressed all in purple, her brown hair tied in a high ponytail, a little girl we ended up taking for Ilona.

But Ilona is not a cartoon character, she is a real little girl, who actually appears at the very beginning of the video. The audience quickly learns that her real name is Ilona Mitrecey. She is the daughter of Dan Mitrecey, a professional musician whose name the audience does not know, but who are certainly familiar with his productions. For example, he made a version of Try to Rememberthe song by Harry Belafonte, for the advertisement of a coffee brand broadcast for years on television and in the cinema. And so this musician has musician friends, including a Frenchman living in Italy who needs a little French girl’s voice. Why French? Because for a long time, on the Italian market, disco songs, then dance, then techno have been produced with French voices. Italians find the French language attractive. But here, it’s about telling the story of a little girl who draws a perfect world. So, Ilona Mitrecey records A perfect world in October 2003.

In this episode of It’s a song that resembles usyou hear excerpts from:

Ilona, A perfect world, 2005

Dan Mitrecey, Try To Remember, 1992

The Ritchie Family, Brazil, 1975

Village People, YMCA, 1978

Patrick Juvet, I Love America, 1978

Break Machine, Street Dance, 1984

Hermes House Band, I Will Survive, 1998

Ilona, It’s the holidays, 2005

Ilona, In my rocket, 2005

Ilona, It’s Christmas, only happiness, 2005

Ilona, A perfect world, 2005

You can also extend this column with the book It’s a song that resembles us published by Heritage Publishing.

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