Eclectic Production

A visit to the extravagant house where Victor Hugo spent his exile in Guernsey between 1855 and 1870, the Hauteville House, entirely designed by the writer. This documentary also looks at a little-known aspect of Hugo: his talents as a decorator, architect and designer.

Nothing destined this child born in Marseille in 1921, and from a modest background, to become an avant-garde artist. At 12 years old, the one who is still called César Baldaccini works to help his father, but also studies drawing. In 1943, he moved to Paris and enrolled in the Beaux-Arts. He chose sculpture, an expensive art for this penniless student. From the 1950s, he shaped fine animals from metal debris collected in factories. This alloy between his Mediterranean imagination and these industrial materials earned him the attention of Picasso. But in 1960, this instinct, now in vogue, brought about a radical change. Fascinated by hydraulic presses, he presented three compressed cars at the Salon de Mai. The artist stands aside in front of the machine, and the morbid aesthetic of the breakage radiates the sculpture. Outcry!

At Carnac, in the Morbihan, the multitude of menhirs continues to question archaeologists. The most recent scientific research has identified dozens of new alignments of stones, some of which lie under the sea. Why, in the Neolithic period, did men erect gigantic funerary monuments at Carnac, to the glory of dignitaries as powerful as the Pharaohs? From often minute clues, scientists try to pierce the grey areas that still remain on this site and this unique society that radiated and disappeared suddenly in the heart of Brittany.