How could a movement based on a story as extravagant as that of Claude Vorilhon, alias Raël, seduce so many people? In a four-episode documentary (“Raël: the prophet of the extraterrestrials”, approximately forty-five minutes each) broadcast on Netflix, director Antoine Baldassari and author Alexandre Ifi provide some answers to this question.
Excavating numerous archives of French, American and Canadian television, the film first reminds us to what extent the self-proclaimed “last of the prophets” was, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s, appreciated by the media. As original as he is charismatic, Raël had, for more than a decade, his napkin ring in some of the most watched shows in France. The French media thus provided him with free publicity for years – until a legendary altercation between Raël and Christophe Dechavanne about the “sex education” of children, in October 1992, during the program “Ciel, mon Tuesday ! », on TF1.
But the strength of the documentary lies above all in the words given to the followers, those who are still there as well as those who have left the movement and today denounce its abuses. The film thus offers two radically opposed series of views on the movement. The first, relayed by members interviewed at length, presents an organization where benevolence, freedom, pleasure and joy of living reign - some ultimately paying little attention to the veracity of their guide's assertions.
Dark faces
Then the dark sides of the movement become clearer little by little, in the light of the testimonies of former followers or journalists who lift the veil on the mechanisms of control sometimes pushing entire families to devote themselves body and soul to the messenger of the Elohim [extraterrestrials who created life on earth 25,000 years ago] – perhaps the highlight being the testimony of a geneticist who left the movement in 2016, and claiming that human cloning is a pure invention .
Coupled with careful production, this succession of “pro” and “anti” testimonies is sometimes dizzying. The appearance, as part of an interview given in Japan, in 2021, of a septuagenarian Raël in great shape, satisfied with his results and confident for the future of the movement, completes an instructive, but disturbing, balanced work , but we would have liked more supervision.
The documentary entrusts the role of the expert to Georges Fenech, magistrate and former president of Miviludes, the interministerial mission for vigilance and the fight against sectarian abuses. It would have benefited from giving more voice to researchers – sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, geneticists, etc. – who are largely absent from a film which leaves the viewer a little alone in the face of so many confusing testimonies.
