Camera Silens was a French punk band from Bordeaux active between 1981 and … Read Full Bio ↴Camera Silens was a French punk band from Bordeaux active between 1981 and 1988.

Gilles Bertin (25 March 1961 – 7 November 2019) was a French bassist and singer, and a member of the punk band Camera Silens from 1981 to 1986. Gilles Bertin took part in a bank robbery in Toulouse on 27 April 1988, where nearly 12 million francs were stolen. Gilles Bertin went on the run for 28 years before handing himself in to police.

Camera Silens was a French punk rock/Oi! (with also some reggae and rhythm & blues influences) from Bordeaux formed in 1981, stopped in 1988.

Line up:
1981-1982 : Gilles Bertin (bass, vocals) – Benoît Destriau (guitar) – Philippe Schneiberger (drums)
1983 : Benoît Destriau (guitar, vocals) – Eric Ferrer (bass) – Nicolas Mouriesse (drums)
1984-1985 : Benoît Destriau (guitar) – Gilles Bertin (vocals) – Eric Ferrer (bass) – Bruno Cornet (drums)
1986-1988 : Benoît Destriau (guitar, vocals) – Eric Ferrer (bass) – Bruno Cornet (drums) – François Borne (saxophone)

Born in Paris on 25 March 1961, Gilles Bertin moved to Bordeaux with his parents as a teenager. In Bordeaux, he founded the punk band Camera Silens as a bassist and a singer. The band enjoyed significant success in the French punk rock scene. After he became a drug addict and tested seropositive, he fell into delinquency.

On 27 April 1988, Bertin participated in a robbery on the Toulouse department of Brink's along with a dozen other robbers, after two years of preparation. The group stole 11,571,316 francs, despite never firing a shot. To this day, most of the loot has never been found. After police launched "Operation Sangria", all participants of the robbery were arrested within two years, except for Bertin. He fled to Spain, and then later, Portugal while running a record shop dedicated to alternative rock. In 1995, Bertin fell ill with AIDS, but survived thanks to tritherapy. In 2000, he returned to Barcelona and worked in a bar owned by his family while living under several identities.

On 26 November 2016, Bertin returned to France to face justice. His trial began on 6 June 2018, and he faced 20 years imprisonment. However, Bertin was only sentenced to five years with suspension, after the prosecution cited "good conduct."

In February 2019, Bertin published an autiobiography, titled Trente ans de cavale, ma vie de punk with the publisher Éditions Robert Laffont.

On 7 November 2019, Gilles Bertin succumbed to AIDS after spending several weeks in a coma. He was 58.

Squatt
Camera Silens Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

Son regard était vide
Ses pensées si morbides
Tuer, crever., mourir après
Qu'il gueulait pour survivre
Enchaîné à l'ennui
Il était seul., il s'en foutait

Et il squattait, et il squattait

L'odeur, l'ennui des murs si gris
Et il savait, et il savait
Qu'un jour les rats boufferaient sa vie

Au fond de sa poubelle
Un si joli bunker
Lit effondré., murs délabrés
Il s'endormait sans rêve
Son âme déjà ailleurs
Il était seul., loin de l'horreur

L'atmosphère à gerber
Lui embrumait l'esprit
Odeur malsaine... délire obscène
Son regard était vide
Ses pensées parricides
Tuer, crever., mourir après

Et il squattait, et il squattait
L'odeur, l'ennui, la merde infinie

Et je savais, et je savais
Qu'un jour les rats boufferaient sa vie.

Overall Meaning

The song Squatt by Camera Silens tells the story of a person who lives alone in a squat, with a heavy feeling of despair, emptiness, and disgust. The person's only company is the gray walls and the sickening smell that surrounds them. The person thinks of death, of killing, and of being killed, as all these thoughts seem to be the only things that make sense in their meaningless life. The person is surrounded by decay, with walls that collapse around them, and they try to escape this horror by sleeping, yet even in their dreams, there is no salvation.

The song reflects the despair of marginalized people who live in squats, trying to find some sense of meaning in their lives. The lyrics are about how they feel, the things they see, and how they cope with the harsh, cruel reality of their life. The song's chorus repeats the words "et il squattait" (and he squatted), emphasizing the person's sense of confinement and isolation, and how they have resigned themselves to continue living in this place even though it is killing them.

Overall, Squatt is a bleak and depressing song, but it tells an important story about the struggles of people who have been abandoned by society and left to fend for themselves in a harsh and unforgiving world.

Line by Line Meaning

Son regard était vide
He had no light in his eyes

Ses pensées si morbides
His thoughts were so dark

Tuer, crever., mourir après
Killing, dying, and then dying again was on his mind

Qu'il gueulait pour survivre
He screamed for survival

Enchaîné à l'ennui
Trapped by boredom

Il était seul., il s'en foutait
He was lonely, but didn't care

Et il squattait, et il squattait
He squatted and squatted

L'odeur, l'ennui des murs si gris
The smell and boredom of the gray walls

Et il savait, et il savait
He knew, he knew

Qu'un jour les rats boufferaient sa vie
That one day rats would consume his life

Au fond de sa poubelle
At the bottom of his dumpster