Mark Gilbert took 40.000 pictures and put the after one an other. He took them every 2 minutes during the building period.
The result is a movie that shows the building in les then 4 minutes.

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Since Monsieur Pépyn is with us here, tells us the mayor of the little town of Sussey, we have a lot of things happening. The fires of Saint John, which takes no more time than the shortest of our nights, ask for preparations that take more than a year. It asks not only for the creative energy of the artist, but also the collaboration of all kinds of people. Monsieur Pépyn can use everything and everybody. So we see at work people of alle kinds, French and Dutch. Pépyn is an artist of what is perishable; his creations are not made to stay, but to perish in flames. The fire starts burning when the moon comes up at summer solstice. He makes use of thrown wood, that still can be used. People come and throw it next to his house. And he makes an object of it that everyone likes and considers to be a beautiful work of art.

Look at him, when he works at it, before it is burned down. He works, building it, passionately, to construct an immense wooden animal – a bull, a wild boar, a rooster. The big size of the created animal makes it something like an animal in a fairy tale. When you stands before such an enormous rooster, standing there with its head and tail high in the air, it is as if it will bring you to a airy tale country.

It takes deep thinking before he starts to go to work. He has to calculate proportions. He makes drawings to find a good form. Inside and outside must be considered; the construction must be solid enough to keep the pallets at their place. First of all an inner construction, a carcass, must be made; it has to keep hundreds of wooden pieces together, which will be solidly attached.

A team of volunteers comes to help him. They sweat a lot under the summer sun. They saw beams and planks, inspired by the spirit and the passion of Pépyn. He handles skillfully all his instruments, hammer, saw and stapler, and so does his immediate collaborator, another skillful carpenter. From early morning until late evening one can hear the roaring of the machinery. The workers have no time to chat. People passing by stand still and look at the miracolous beast with open mouth. It looks like a living being. The master worker stands working in the belly of his creation, you see just the upper part of his body. He looks like a little bird. The onlooker has a mesmerizing sensation: he has the strange feeling of seeing a reversal of realities: here the animal seems to give birth to the human being.

When D-day is there, the animal, full with straw and fireworks, has to be transported to the hill where it will be sacrificed. It needs some ten men with well developed muscles to do it. They hold their breath, they shout, they laugh. And some of them grumble: what a pity, such a nice beast,, standing up so proudly. Monsieur mayor woud have preferred to give it a prominent place in the center of the village. Alas! That is not what the artist has in mind. The animal is firmly stowed on a wagon pulled by a tractor. A great number of cars follow. And thus the animal quits the place of its creation. Oversentimental onlookers feel tears coming up to their eyes.

When the big moment is there we can see the rooster standing right up, proudly, his head in the air, his tail in the wind, looking as a king over the beautiful landscape. It is the moment of apotheosis. People are approaching from all sides. The moon comes up at the horizon, big, vaguely red. The sky darkens. Thie is the big moment.

With his special stick Monsieur Pépyn lits the fire. Just a few seconds later the fire starts to crackle. A simple little cord is used to open the mouth of the rooster and then, in the gloomy night, we hear him sing his last song. Everybody, in the immediate neighbourhood of the fire, shouts with him. Cocorico! Kukukeleku! The animal starts dying. The cockscomb takes a black colour and has little red flames on it. We see his round eye like a carbuncle. It is as if he looks at us.

More and more violent becomes the fire. It crackles and makes big noise. When the rooster has become a statue of fire and ashes, as a dying torch, a big burning cross is still visible, an astonishing spectacle. Is it by accident? Or organized intentionally by our magician? We quiver, we laugh, we drink, we eat sausages, we dance. We take care not to be touched by sparks that float in the air. We shout out our admiration. Yippee! How could we otherwise express our ealtation in front of something so sublime?

Mister burgomaster tells mister prefect about mister Pépyn. The latter thinks already about the project for next year.

Camille Mortagne, 2010

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