• France 5 broadcasts the documentary Bald, the revenge this Friday, March 17, 2023 at 21pm.
  • Through the testimonies of famous bald people, the film traces the "intimate and collective revolution" of the image of bald people in popular culture, from the balding puppet to the stylish hero.
  • "We realized that they had gone through the same stages, had experienced the same evolution, the same taming of its reflection in the mirror," says Valentin Mollette, co-director of the documentary to 20 Minutes.

We are on December 6, 2022 when in a masterful communication coup, Kyan Khojandi appears on the set of Quotidien... hairy. Bald for several years, the comedian had a hair supplement applied without telling anyone. "When I dropped my hair, I felt a real peace, like, 'I don't have to fight anymore, actually.' [...] As I gained notoriety, more and more people began to remind me that I was bald. ", he confided in a video-revelation posted on Instagram a week later. He confesses the complexity "for a man to lose his hair". "Besides, I embrace the whole bald team, I know that every time we meet, there is a real empathy between us. "

What if after decades of denigration, bald people took their revenge? "We thought it was a pretty exciting playground because it was completely virgin despite a theme that concerns many men," says Paul Sanfourche to 20 Minutes. He co-directed the documentary Bald, Revenge, broadcast this Friday on France 5, with the voice of the same Kyan Khojandi as a red thread.

If masculinity is sometimes limited to the muscles, the voice or the sex of men, it would also be erect by thousands on their heads. This film is a link between the look on hairless skulls and the representations of bald people in the media. The directing duo offers a "masculine cultural epic, from shame to pride".

"From Jean-Claude Dusse to The Rock"

How did the balding braggart become a stylish war machine? For decades, bald people have been the object of many fantasies feeding both an imagination that we often hope is distant and a repulsion. "Men who have hair also ask questions," insists Valentin Mollette, the second co-director. "We often look at his father, his grandfather to find out what will happen to us."

How do small and big screens always feed our imaginations about baldness. "There is a very clear evolution," says Paul Sanfourche. "We went from Jean-Claude Dusse to The Rock. We quickly saw that there was a fairly precise trajectory where we went from something badly assumed to something empowering. »

From a baldness always suffered - because no one chooses to have a forehead that widens over time - to a release of the hair by a smooth skull as a seizure of power that this state of affairs, there would be only one step. Like when Kyan Khojandi chose to let the clipper finish the job after seeing his first hair fall out at 20. "I assumed and I feel good, I find myself pretty cool with my bald head," he says by video.

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"They wanted to give themselves up"

The smooth skulls, the hairless, the zero balls... It is to those whose cranial morphology shines in the spotlight that the film gives voice. For three months, the duo of directors went to meet the youtubeur Carlito, the actor Éric Judor, the dancer François Alu, or the ex-footballer Franck Leboeuf. They recount their "intimate and collective revolution", this moment when getting rid of their cappillary mass was a revelation.

"As this is a question that has not been explored much, they wanted to give themselves, to tell something, reveals Paul Sanfourche We felt that they had retained things in them for many years. "

From their recordings, they retain significant stories that come together. "We realized that they had gone through the same stages, had experienced the same evolution, the same taming of its reflection in the mirror," recalls Valentin Mollette. And until the experience of the kiss on the skull, lucky charm to the football France team and its emblematic captain Fabien Barthez in 1998. "Besides, we do not kiss the skull of bald people, we stop with that," concludes Paul Sanfourche.

  • Entertainment
  • Television
  • Documentary
  • France 5
  • Hair