Four years after the premiere of the first film, unconditional fans of Alexandre Astier and his work have long had their place to Kaamelott: Part Two (part 1]in theaters this Wednesday, October 22. This is the case of Alan, who fell in love with the series about the legend of King Arthur in the early 2000s, when he was only six years old.
This 26-year-old security agent follows the work of Alexandre Astier very closely, even twenty years later. “At that age, I didn’t understand everything. I was attracted to the world of knights, armor and swords… but the world I was hooked immediately and it has never left me since.” Like him, there are thousands of fans who maintain a true cult for the series, and now for the movies.
“Difficult to separate Kaamelott from his creator”
Justine Breton, professor of medievalism at the University of Lorraine, who studied the link between kaamelott and the Middle Ages, points out that Alexandre Astier has benefited from “a very loyal and solid fan base” since his beginnings. “Many grew up and developed with the series during their adolescence or even their childhood. It has left its mark on generations, and we see it in the references that arise periodically.”
The series, broadcast between 2005 and 2009 on M6, attracted up to five million viewers in the early 2000s and its broadcasts continue to attract 288,000 viewers. As for the movie Kaamelott – Volume 1, Released in 2021, it was also a huge success, with 2.6 million admissions.
Twenty years after the launch of the M6 series, the community remains as vibrant as ever. Guillaume, moderator of a Facebook group that brings together nearly 53,000 fans and soberly titled “My king is called Alexandre Astier, my religion is Kaamelott”, confirms: “there is a real fan base that is still alive.”
The members constantly share montages and winks to kaamelott. Every week, Guillaume accepts numerous membership applications: “57 more have been received in the last seven days alone.”
Many grew up with the series. Alan, for example, fell in love with this television series and then with its creator. “At first it makes us laugh, and the older we get, the more we realize the intensity and delicacy of the writing and the sense of humor.” He is “a real genius,” says this resident of Saint-Étienne (Loire), who for years has religiously collected all of Kaamelott’s comics, magazines, movie soundtracks, figurines, posters and even clothing that represent the medieval saga…
“Difficult, in fact, to separate kaamelott of his creator”, underlines Justine Breton. And rightly so, Alexandre Astier “is a bit in charge: he directs, edits, composes the music, the main role… And then we often talk about Alexandre Astier’s ‘jokes’, it is true that he is a character in himself, with self-deprecation.”
“Jack of all trades” and “popularizer”
“I really like his humor, his way of seeing and presenting things. He makes me laugh, but in an intelligent way!” says Guillaume. “Even in kaamelottsometimes it’s perfectly stupid, that’s what I like. “You have to be strong to play dumb.”
His fans thus greet a complete artist. “He is a jack of all trades. He is someone who totally inspires me because he knows how to do everything, he wears many hats,” says Alan, who says he is very inspired by Alexandre Astier’s life choices or way of thinking. “When you start watching his interviews, you discover a simple but also very interesting person: I really like his relationship with fatherhood, with education. He made me interested in science, in art. When he talks about something, he knows what he’s talking about. It’s simply inspiring.”
“I don’t want to seem enlightened, but having lost my father at a very young age, I almost see him as a spiritual father, the one I would have liked to have. I appreciate his way of seeing things and I find him very fair on many social issues,” confesses the young man.
Over the years, Alexandre Astier has shown that he has other strings in his power, confirms Justine Breton. He has “a very curious mind and a very broad culture that he takes advantage of to talk about what he likes in his shows. He is a musician, originally a composer, he has theater training, interested in science.”
“Intellectualize the comic process to speak to the general public”
In 2012 he created the work. May my joy remain!dedicated to the composer Johann Sebastian Bach. Two years later, in 2014, he presented The exoconferencea show that combines science and philosophical reflection, awarded in 2016 by the French Society of Astronomy and Astrophysics.
For Justine Breton, Alexandre Astier is “a very interesting disseminator” in the sense that “he allows us to establish a link between literary, historical, scientific, musical knowledge and the general public. (For) people who may not have wanted to access these topics, he manages to transmit many things through humor and writing that does not specifically seek to transmit this knowledge, but rather draws on it.”
“What I admire is that he is able to make complex topics not only accessible, but also captivating,” explains Alan, who appreciates that Alexandre Astier allows himself to talk about astronomy as well as love, music or philosophy, with the same clarity and the same humor. “This boy has extraordinary intelligence,” adds Guillaume.
This, according to Justine Breton, explains part of the long-term success of kaamelott and Alexandre Astier: “it can attract the general public to entertain it, but also interest specialists.” Not in vain did he decide to dedicate the entire series to Louis de Funès, who “also intellectualized the comic process to attract the greatest number of people possible. It is in this dynamic of taking comedy seriously.”
However, this community has been criticized in recent years for its closeness, sometimes considered exclusive towards those who do not share its humor. On social media, Alexandre Astier’s admirers are so passionate that they do not hesitate to defend him tooth and nail whenever he is the target of criticism.
In any case, certain replicas of kaamelottas “It is not false” or “fat is life”, have ended up taking lasting root in popular culture. Guillaume emphasizes: “No matter where you go, at some point there will inevitably be a reference to Kaamelott, in particular Perceval’s famous “it is not false.”
The enthusiasm for Kaamelott is sometimes extreme: in 2021, one long-time fan even entered the record books after watching the first part of the film… 203 times.
Source: BFM TV
