Original subtitles

An uneven coastline, and azure...

Azure, azure, azure...

... constitute the C�te d'Azur, the French Riviera.

The English have invented a few landmarks of the coast:

- The Promenade des Anglais. - Nice.

- The H�tel des Anglais. - Menton.

The Eglise anglaise, also called English Church...

... and the British Pharmacy.

ALONG THE COAST

Cinematography

Editing

Narrated by

The natives are not the subject of this film.

Cogolin.

Fulfilling the classic clich�, they are always old and charming.

Let's leave them between the donkey and the cow.

Our subject is the crowd:

The tourists, the curious, the emigrants, the amateurs,

the passengers who discover this coast and gather there to spend their free time.

In 40 years, Nice's population grew from 100,000 to 240,000 inhabitants.

104,762 extra sleepers overpopulate it every night.

Cannes awakes with 32,003 emigrants,

and Saint-Tropez, a village of 4000 souls, harbors 50,000 bodies in August.

What are they looking for in the Riviera?

When did they start to come?

The first patient was maybe Cornelia Salonina,

a Roman empress, who had a fragile condition and broken nerves.

She spent the winter in Cimiez' thermal baths.

Nice.

The first tourist was maybe the Cardinal Maurice of Savoy

who, despite his 50 years of age,

took off his habit in order to marry his niece,

Princess Marie-Louise.

She was 14.

Their honeymoon took place in a room still visited today.

2 rue Jules Gilly, Nice.

They spent the winter there.

Inventing "swallow tourism":

The possibility to find, in any season, not only the sun,

but also the wild palm tree,

the mimosa,

the cypress,

the cypresses,

the maritime pine,

the pink laurel,

the Indian fig opuntia, which Moroccans call the Christian fig tree,

and the agave which lives for 100 years, grows flowers once, and dies.

During the 18th century, in order to travel from Calais to Nice,

one had to travel in a stagecoach for 16 days,

stopping at 107 relay stations.

Cannes, the 107th stop,

grew in popularity due to the plague, closing Nice's gates to Lord Brougham.

Lord Brougham.

Seduced by his quarantine in Cannes,

and stayed there for 40 years and even more.

Following his lead, many English,

among which, Queen Victoria, came to the city.

English dukes,

the Russian grand dukes,

many titles and even a few names.

Dante Alighieri,

the Italian consul in Nice.

�mile Zola

spent his honeymoon in the H�tel de Paris in Monaco.

Friedrich Nietzsche,

the third Zarathustra around the village of Eze.

Lucien Guitry,

his poultry,

the garden in St. Pons les M�res.

A partly sunny morning in Monaco,

a teenager who looked like Guillaume Apollinaire.

And Colette,

who looked like a cat of Saint-Tropez,

was writing Break of Day.

Giraudoux, in Porquerolles,

wrote Suzanne et le Pacifique.

Painters also idealized the Riviera.

- In the paintings of Joseph Vernet... - Antibes.

... one could see the tower of the Ch�teau Grimaldi.

In the ch�teau, Picasso's work is displayed.

A painter and a ceramist, Picasso worked year-round.

The only serious competition he finds to his painting and firing,

the sun.

The sun's carriage springs up from the water.

It takes humanity along in its burning race,

and leaves it lying in the evening, to be born again in the morning,

and then starts again the cycle of a slow labor,

which requires overcoming reserve and boredom,

at the risk of losing your head, or your skin

which is judged by its tan.

When you get to this point, you have to cover yourself.

And since from the useful comes the beautiful,

the cover becomes an accessory.

They came to find the sun, they found oblivion.

Where are they?

They are far away.

Far from the coast.

Far from everywhere.

This is what we call exoticism.

A pagoda-shaped shop,

- it is Sunday in Beijing. - Fr�jus.

A Sudanic mosque,

- Africa talks to you. - Fr�jus.

- A bulb, it is the Orient Palace. - Menton.

A Persian building, the Arabian Nights.

In Monte Carlo.

A Russian church,

a carriage:

- Moscow, 1900. - Nice.

A swimmer,

a subway entrance:

- Paris, 1900. - Cannes.

Finally, the most exotic of all: The exotic gardens.

A favorite place for lovers of nature

who long for the silence of vegetation.

Despite the guide's explanations,

they don't try to remember the names of the plants.

They'd rather have the plants remember theirs.

Write one's own name,

or the name of a woman, hoping to see her appear.

For want of seeing Bardot, talking to her, touching her,

they come to drink in Saint-Tropez.

Through a natural compensation system, appetites change.

They come to eat in Cannes,

for want of meeting Sophia Loren at the Festival.

For want of seeing Matisse, they come to see his grave.

Alive or dead, famous people have an audience,

like Cro-Magnon, the first famous man, and the oldest dead,

receiving the tribute of the visitors before they go see the Troph�e d'Auguste...

La Turbie.

...the Roman aqueduct... - Fr�jus.

... and the 13 moth-eaten marble blocks

intended for the August temple in Narbonne,

engulfed during a storm.

Saint-Tropez.

Let's return to the museum that which belonged to Caesar.

Let's leave the antiquities,

and rehabilitate the inhabited relics, the most precious of the Riviera:

The age-old trees.

A gigantic elm, planted in the time of Sully.

In Ramatuelle.

A 1000-year-old olive tree.

In Beaulieu.

A bald cypress from Canada and Louisiana,

cutting made by Monsieur Robert in 1797.

In Toulon.

- A century-old oak. - In Saint-Cassien.

And hackberries, whose shadow is salutary.

In Cogolin.

Opposed to this dark color,

there is the bright color of the markets.

But the tourists prefer the trendy colors, yellow and blue.

Passing fancies, hotels are painted yellow and blue.

Blue wins.

All women want to be fashionable.

All women wear blue,

except the English,

those learning to swim,

and the Germans, who are dedicated to green.

Camping being the airiest form of freedom,

and the most ceremonial,

it is very comfortable, in the majesty of antique chairs.

They retire under their tents.

These parks, overpopulated with merry people attracted by the Latin shore,

foreshadow the dead people seeking eternal rest there.

In both cases, space is limited because of its good quality.

It is a well-rated coast.

The Riviera is France's most beautiful cemetery,

with a great view and a perpetually-renewed sea.

The Riviera's deceased is of quality.

The landscape welcomes him with a well-deserved rest.

He is discreet like a saddened heart with no tears,

humble like a hoop without roses,

quiet like a field without honor,

childish like a cradle,

silent like the nearby forest,

and surprising like, behind this wall,

the giant Virgin.

Saint Jean Cap Ferrat.

The Holy Mother missed her entrance in the Church,

the cock has fallen from the bell tower,

tipped by a bowl, in the manner of this game of boules.

Fortune turns with the roulette,

as well as the wheel.

- Death took Isadora Duncan. - In Nice.

Jean-Gabriel Domergue is ready in the front of his tomb,

which he built like others build houses,

less eternal, but full of the charm of life.

The Charmer

tenderness

FRENZY

FINALLY

The villa

embodies the craziness of design.

Abandoned gardens, forgotten villas...

This is cinema.

Blasco lb��ez' friends enjoyed coming to this retirement home for writers.

Others liked hotels.

What touches them and attaches them to a particular hotel,

is the greeting of the doorman.

According to the barometer of his familiarity,

you are somebody or you're not.

Doorman for 20 years at the Grand H�tel...

Cannes.

... this one continues the game,

greeting the lesser wallets

with an irritating nostalgia for the bigger ones.

Where is the former Grand H�tel?

Where is the Eden Roc?

Where is Eden?

The entire coast longs for it.

The entire coast writes its name.

Pedal boats on the other side of EDEN.

You always lack a penny to make one franc.

CLIMB OF THE DREAM DEAD END

The forbidden Eden sparks off a cry.

The carnival is born from nostalgia.

The carnival burns.

The earth shakes.

The sun goes mad. The water takes its shape.

The carnival is dead, silence is golden.

Silence as an answer to so many questions, to volcanoes, to swirls.

Eden exists.

It is a dawn.

Eden exists,

it is an island.

Heaven was a beach, and a pine cone.

But the nostalgia of Eden is a garden.

It is no longer the C�te d'Azur,

but a transplanted garden.

It is an idea of a garden with flowers, grass and columns.

Forgetting the sea nearby,

the pond is a regret,

the water lily is a lingering sigh.

These are fake Eves,

fake Adams,

fake Cupids,

misleading Venuses,

fake caves and fake nymphs.

Reveries are shared,

but not the garden.

The fake Eden is not for us,

neither is Eden.

And worse,

the summer season comes to an end.