« I always hated my first name. Vitaa it's the middle name of my mother who is of Sicilian origin. It's my shell, my armor “. A year after the release of her album “Charlotte” and while she is in the middle of a tour, Vitaa prepares to “ tell (one's) story for the first time » in the documentary “My name is Charlotte”, broadcast this evening on TMC. The opportunity for the interpreter of “A fleur de toi” to take stock, after 18 years of career and imminent retirement. Followed by cameras for more than 2 years, Vitaa opens the doors to her intimacy, inviting us both into her home and in front of her childhood home where it all began for her, before taking us behind the scenes of her concerts and recording sessions. More surprisingly, the singer also shows us images of her daughter in respiratory distress after her birth or of her recent homejacking.
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“A mother consumed by guilt”
With an open heart, more natural than ever, Vitaa immerses himself in his memories with passion for 1h30 to go back and talk about his difficult beginnings, his notoriety, this misogynistic industry, but also the encounters which marked his life as a Diam’s to Slimane through her husband Hicham. From the first seconds, Vitaa invites us into his huge house, during a moment of relaxation with his sons in the swimming pool. “ You don't care, right? That your mother is Vitaa » she says to her children, before transposing us to the Lyon region during a motorbike ride with her father and her brother Mathieu. Between two archive photos, the artist looks back on his first musical experience and his very first crucial meeting with Diam's, unfortunately absent from the documentary. “ A human love at first sight, soul mates » remembers Vitaa. On the edge of emotion, she burst into tears while talking about the doors that were closed at the time as she tried to find a place for herself with her first album, which would later become a phenomenon. And this is the real advantage of this documentary: scratching a little further than the glossy image, in order to see beyond this success and this luxurious lifestyle.
READ – Vitaa in interview: “In this job, you have to toughen up otherwise you go crazy”
Because by retracing his journey, his successes as well as his failures, with humorous testimonies from those close to him like Amel Bent, his manager Saïd Boussif, Gims, Carla Bruni, Tony Parker and Slimane, Vitaa shows a vulnerable and authentic side, rarely perceived until now. Between two intimate and complicit moments with her sons, she very briefly talks about her tense relationships with her father as a teenager, her physical complexes which push her to become control freak and which traumatize its teams, but also its status as “ guilt-ridden mom “. The fault lies in an intense profession that demands much more from women. “ You feel like you're not living up to the expectations of your children and your audience » she slips, before confiding her desire to move away from the light. “ What do you think about me stopping singing and writing for others? No one sees me anymore. This is my project » confides Vitaa to one of her sons, she who wishes to make her family a “ priority ».
Her husband Hicham testifies for the first time
The documentary “My name is Charlotte” also looks back on the certain impact of her husband Hicham, who speaks for the very first time in an interview. It was he who took charge of the singer's career, then in the trough of the wave. With a certain iron fist. “ This clip is a failure! It's a total disappointment » he says to her during a business discussion in their car, before we see a slightly tense exchange in their kitchen, witness to their regular arguments about “ dog and cat », which Gims and his wife make fun of at the same time. We thus discover the intense work behind the rebirth of Vitaa with “Game Over” in 2013, with “Versus”, a joint album with Slimane, in climax with its million sales. Dadju describes it as “ a phoenix ». « She has everything but she works like she has nothing » sums up Carla Bruni well. With “My name is Charlotte”, Vitaa delivers an intimate, successful and honest documentary, which will certainly please fans and will also show another image to the general public. Before saying goodbye to him?
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