a documentary on the Battle of the Somme directed by Rivenzi takes off on YouTube

More than 90,000 views in 24 hours: content creator Rivenzi has produced a documentary where he travels through the places of memory of the Battle of the Somme. His meetings between Albert, Thiepval and Villers-Bretonneux achieved rapid success which pleasantly surprised him.

In the golden light of the end of September, for three days, he walked the long paths of the military cemeteries of the Somme. He is Théo Reunbot, better known by his content creator name Rivenzi. His YouTube channel has 146,000 subscribers, his Twitch channel, almost 270,000.

Passionate about history, for his latest documentary, he travels through the places of memory of the Battle of the Somme. A first foray into the department which visibly appealed to him: “I was very pleasantly surprised by a region that we don't often talk about, I really liked the landscapes, the red bricks, it's hilly, very relaxant.“It was Somme tourisme which invited him to produce this content, with its attractive hook. Rivenzi begins by evoking the links between this battle and a world bestseller, The Lord of the Rings.

If the British author of this saga which marked the history of literature has always refuted the parallels between his story and that of the world wars, he admitted to having been inspired by his experiences for certain descriptions. Several exegetes of the novels have suggested that the swamp of the dead, crossed by Frodo, Sam and Gollum in the second volume, would have been inspired by the Battle of the Somme, in which the author participated in 1916.

It is true that when Sam stumbles into the greenish slime of the swamp, he says in horror, “There are dead things in the water, dead faces“. He then asks Frodo who these dead people are and the latter answers him “They lie in all the pools, these pale faces in the depths of these dark waters. Lots of proud, beautiful faces, with seaweed in their silver hair. But all filthy, rotting, all dead.“

Gollum adds: “There was a great battle in the olden days, yes, that's what they said when Sméagol was young, when I was young before the Treasury came. It was a great battle. Tall Men, with long swords, and terrible Elves, and howling Orcs. They fought on the plain for days and months at the Black Gates. But the Marshes have spread there since then, they have swallowed up the graves, they creep ever more.“

Fans see it as a reference to the muddy hell of World War I and Rivenzi as a great opening for his documentary. “I'm reading Lord of the Rings at the moment, it's a bit 'fallen' like thatobserves Théo Reunbot. It's also trying to hook people who aren't immediately interested in the story, to get them in another way.. The subject may seem distant, That allows it to be linked to a artwork that they know.”

But the content creator does not look for his material only in books. For him, it is the places that speak.

During the 39 minutes of the documentary, he walks from Villers-Bretonneux to Pozières, via Albert, Thiepval and even Rancourt. Accompanied by Olivier Dirson, guide for Chemin d'histoire – Battlefiled tours, he travels through the sites of battles and massacres. Then meet the museum and memorial guides.

“To talk about history, places are important. LThe books of historians are very interesting, but you have to meet THE actors on the ground so that places reveal their depthunderlines Théo Reunbot. They also have this relationship with the public, to talk about memory, it is important to understand their interaction with visitors. They often have period maps, old photos, it's very useful!”

He owes this empirical approach to history to Patrick Boucheron, historian from the Collège de France whom he invited for an interview on his Twitch channel. “IHe told me that he really started to appreciateer the story by going to the terrainthat he understood the story by going to the scene to feel the emotions relatedes at events” remembers the content creator.

In the Somme, several places have marked him, but if he had to remember only one, it would be the La Boisselle mine hole, Lochnagar Crater for English speakers. “CIt's still amazing. This is the first site we visited, it seems unreal. I went to Verdunin Normandiebut a crater like that... The pictures are not enough to describe the place… And what's crazy is that the surroundings are very peaceful” notes Théo Reunbot.

This approach at visitor level is perhaps one of the reasons for the success of the video. Théo Reunbot admits it without difficulty, he does not do a lot of research before going into the field, because he does not want to guide his interlocutors based on pre-existing expectations.

“On adapts our remarks based on what people tell us on the ground. We do long interviews and then we deepen our research” he indicates. In particular by completing the sequences in the Somme with a long interview with the historian Romain Fathi, researcher at the University of Canberra in Australia.

The recipe works: at 6 p.m. on November 13, the video published the day before exceeded 93,000 views. “This is our best start to a documentary, so we are very happy. We have an entertainment format that works very quickly, very well, the documentariesmentarys often start slowly and climb to overtake others. Lto, it went very quicklyrejoices Théo Reunbot. I think we'll hit 100,000 views in 24 hours!“

Public interest which resonates with the conclusion of his video, where the creator broadcasts an interview with JRR Tolkien, “if you are interested in all the great stories, which interest people and hold their attention for a considerable time… Virtually all human stories are about only one thing. Death. The inevitability of death.” In the Somme, more than 400 cemeteries are there to remember these stories in History.