Mountain. The fabulous setting of the Alex Hugo series in Briançonnais

The television series “Alex Hugo”, played by Samuel Le Bihan, is filmed in Briançonnais. The mountain is omnipresent in the adventures of this big-hearted police officer. Meeting with the film crew, in the sublime Clarée valley.

It is sometimes nicknamed “the most beautiful valley in the world”, with a touch of chauvinism nevertheless justified by the wild beauty of the place. The Clarée valley, north of the Hautes-Alpes, has remained in its original state. There are varied and immaculate landscapes: no ski lifts, and relatively discreet tourist town planning.

From the high mountains to the green valleys where a cinema river flows – so clear is its water – everything here gives the impression of living in a film set, and this is undoubtedly what attracted the team of production of the successful television series “Alex Hugo” broadcast on France 3.

▶️ REPLAY Chronicles from Above: Clarée Valley: in the footsteps of Alex Hugo

For Delphine Wautier, the producer, the mountain was a natural choice. But the mountain is much more than a simple backdrop in the series, it is one of the main characters, sometimes disturbing, sometimes soothing, according to the adventures experienced by the police officer who must for each of his investigations deal with a nature without concession: the mountain environment.

It was after reading an American novel, which tells the adventures of an urban policeman aspiring to a calmer life in the countryside, that Delphine Wautier imagined transposing this story to our French lands, with Alex Hugo as the hero. “The values ​​conveyed by Alex Hugo in the series corresponded to mine. This is what started it all“.

Played by Samuel Le Bihan, Alex Hugo leaves the Marseille police, tired of urban violence and the noxious atmosphere of a city police station. Having become a cop in a mountain village, Alex Hugo will nevertheless find himself caught up in delinquency and crime, but will strive to resolve his investigations with humanity and justice.

Initially, we imagined shooting a few numbers. We are at more than 30 episodes over 9 seasons, the series has met its audience and meets viewers’ expectations.

Delphine Wautier, producer of the series “Alex Hugo”

The choice of Briançonnais was obvious quite quickly. Between the Écrins massif and its high mountain glacial landscapes, the proximity of large passes like that of the Izoard, the more urban atmospheres like in Briançon or even the preserved and wild valleys like that of Clarée: this region offers everyone episode of mountainous territories with varied accents.

Other opportunities presented themselves, such as this somewhat austere and unused building, which became for the purposes of the film the premises of the famous “Rural Police”. A police station located in Lusagne, a village that does not exist! These sequences are actually filmed in the hamlet of Val des Prés, downstream from Névache.

Fans of the series have fun when they visit the wonderful Clarée valley: they no longer understand anything about geography! Alex Hugo sometimes leaves his chalet and takes a road… which leads nowhere, even though he is supposed to go to Marseille. It’s a bit of the magic of cinema: managing to tell a story by optimizing natural settings, even if they are in reality several tens of kilometers apart.

In cinema circles, an old adage says that it is better to avoid shooting a film with animals or children, who are difficult to manage… We could have added the mountain. Because it does what it wants, the mountain. Already, filming outdoors and at altitude is a challenge for the FranceTV Studio teams, responsible for producing the episodes. The equipment is heavy, the paths sometimes difficult or snowy, the weather uncertain and capricious. We start shooting a sequence in the snow and in the white, and the next day, everything has melted, the setting no longer fits!

The solution? Work with imaginative directors and committed teams who will find a way around this problem. In the mountains, it’s all about adaptation… Is the path to the filming location covered in snow? The equipment goes up with donkeys. The scenarios adapt to climatic conditions. Delphine Wautier readily admits to the additional stress caused by the conditions of filming in the mountains. In return, wonder is always there. The mountain offers more than a setting, it is one of the characters of the series, frightening in the storm, mysterious in the fog, welcoming on a beautiful summer day: it is precisely the diversity of these atmospheres which make the Alex Hugo series rich.

For Samuel Le Bihan, who plays Alex Hugo in the series, the mountain is one of the constituent elements of the atmosphere of the series, but also a great daily challenge during filming. He gets involved as much as possible in sometimes risky sequences and dizzying settings. The character he embodies, dark, not very talkative, but generous, is like the mountain people. The match between the natural setting, the people here and the role it plays is perfect.

A school of humility for Fabien Baiardi, aka Tony Leblanc in the series, who reminds us that the mountain prevents you from becoming big-headed. “Here, we are always dominated by something that is beyond us, he saidand it reminds us of our rightful place”. He remembers a sudden snowstorm which forced them to stop filming, and to go back down into the valley in the storm, to the point where they no longer knew where the road was. Physically demanding shoots for all the actors and technicians. This is undoubtedly what explains the tremendous cohesion of the film crew who spent many weeks working in the Clarée valley, far from the city, in total immersion…

The mountain does not lie and is difficult to disguise. She has undoubtedly infused part of who she is into the hearts of the actors. Undoubtedly part of the success of this series which tells this authentic, sincere, wild universe so well. Like the Clarée valley.

▶️ “Clrée Valley: in the footsteps of Alex Hugo“ presented by Laurent Guillaume, directed by Xavier Blanotbroadcast on Sunday October 13 at 12:50 p.m. in “Chroniques d’en Haut” on France 3 Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, to be seen again in REPLAY on france.tv