Broadcast for the first time on February 5 on TF1, the mini-series the red bracelets, composed of 6 episodes, ended this Monday, February 19, and the series will have gathered nearly 6 million viewers. Focus on this gem of the small screen.
Warning: SPOILERS in the article.
Moving but not tragic
The series exposes the daily life of Thomas, Clément, Roxane, Mehdi, Sarah and Côme, hospitalized children and teenagers determined to enjoy their youth in their own way despite the disease. Fear of operations or exams, helplessness of parents, conflicts,… But also the first emotions in love, friendship, solidarity, laughter, and above all: hope.
One of the strengths of the series is to have been able to deal with a subject as sensitive as the disease, especially when it comes to children, without falling into pathos.
The script skilfully juggles between emotion and humor, our heart tightens slightly and our eyes fog up and shine before the innocence and jokes of certain characters.
Some help to relativize, like Thomas, suffering from cancer, when he reassures his friend Clément who has to have a leg amputated, which he himself has already experienced. Faced with the distress of his friend, he shows him that in his misfortune he can find a chance, the chance that the surgeons do it early enough for him to recover at best, which was not his case.
The production was able to bring a little lightness to a subject yet heavy, without taking away its emotion, which made all the beauty of the program.
Awareness of disability and illness
On a daily basis, it is not uncommon to meet a person with a disability, amputated of a limb … And yet when it touches the body, the mutilated body, it is difficult to sustain the gaze. But the evasive look can be as hurtful as the insistent look. The series leads us to reconsider this way of seeing things, showing the amputated characters and getting their comrades to look at them without embarrassment, without mercy, with even sometimes a touch of humor that would surely have been considered inappropriate in everyday life. Here, the disease is considered a weight heavy enough to be more dramatized, so it is more appreciated to talk about it in a true, raw way, without going through four paths and without shame.
Many widespread diseases are included in the program: cancer, eating disorders… Who can claim never to have known someone who has experienced it? Maybe that's what makes us feel touched as viewers, and what could lead us to have a fresh look at the sick.
Endearing characters, easily identified with
In the red bracelets, a wide variety of patients is represented: those who are afraid, those who are angry, those who are in denial, or those who prefer to see the glass half full. And it is beautiful to see their evolution, fear turns into courage, anger fades to give way to something more beautiful, love, friendship … The acceptance of the disease is born of these new feelings and solidarity between the characters and denial gives ground.
Many young girls will recognize themselves in Roxanne's eating disorders, many parents will also recognize themselves in the helplessness and feeling of helplessness in the face of her child's illness, which the actor Michaël Youn was able to illustrate to us wonderfully by interpreting Sarah's father, worried about his daughter, Tender, trying to maintain this figure of parent despite his vulnerability to the idea of losing his child.
Each character, as annoying as it is at first, if it does not end up winning our sympathy, moves us.
A somewhat abrupt and upsetting end
The downside of the series remains the end, rather abrupt, in which we learn of the death of Sarah, following a heart operation. A not so unexpected ending however since we had been let to foreshadow the end: during the scene in which the characters play action or truth, Roxanne must answer the question "who will die first". For which she designates Sarah, to the astonishment of the other characters, including Thomas, who thought he was designated. A rather ironic ending, because Sarah, when she arrived at the hospital, said that she did not want to stay with the sick, that she had nothing to do with them and that she would soon go home. A shocking death, which does not however sign the end of the series since it was announced that it was renewed for a second season.
Which finally leads us to wonder: will Thomas recover from the appearance of new metastases? Will Como wake up? Will Roxanne manage to eat again?
There is no doubt that this next season promises to be even more moving and full of surprises.
The real story behind the red bracelets
The series is actually inspired by the life of Albert Espinosa, a Spanish industrial engineer, writer and screenwriter. Like the main characters of the red bracelets, he spent most of his childhood in the hospital where he survived three cancers, losing the use of one of his legs and one of his lungs. It was following the red bracelets given to the children after the operations that the adaptation inherited this name. He himself adapted his story to the screen for the first time in 2011 under the name Polseres vermelles, which had even been broadcast in France on channel Number 23.
And before the France, the United States (Red Band Society), Italy (Braccialetti Rossi), Chile (Pulseras Rokas), Peru (Pulseras Rojas), Germany (Club der roten Bänder) and Russia (Krasnye braslety) had already adapted its history.
