Mylène Farmer - Plus grandir

Shot in October 1985 — one day in the Saint-Denis cemetery, four in a studio in Stains — Plus grandir is the seven-and-a-half-minute film Laurent Boutonnat made for Mylène Farmer's second single. First screened in a cinema on 13 November 1985 and broadcast on television the following month, it was filmed in Cinemascope on a budget of 330,000 francs, and set the pattern of the story-driven clips that would follow, Libertine first among them.

The film opens in a cemetery, where Mylène Farmer pushes a pram and stops at a grave that bears her own name. A flashback carries the story to a baroque castle and its oppressive world of nuns and childhood fears: the passage from girl to woman, an act at once feared and desired. Reviews were favourable; one television programme refused the clip as too morbid.

The man of that central scene is Hervé Lewis, credited under the name he used at the time, Rambo Kowalski. A former boxer and a physical trainer, he would return the following year as the duelist of Libertine, then accompany Mylène Farmer for decades — preparing her physically for her tours from 1989 to Timeless 2013 — before photographing her for the single Oui mais... Non (2010) and the cover of Monkey Me (2012).

Markowicz Fine Art presents the fine art photography of Hervé Lewis. This video is shown as a document of the artist's career; it is not a work available for purchase.