Camping Cosmos

This movie surprises me every time I look at it. It is hard to believe that Lolo Ferrari is dead because in the movie she is a great actress and she is more than a Barbie-doll. As a Belgian I am able to recognize some of the characters but I think they are universal. The postman with his bag with the initials C.C.C.P. is a secretive person: does he make love with Miss Vandeputte (Lolo Ferrari)? The beach-master (Arno) who is a homosexual, the autistic painter (Herman Brusselmans) who puts slogans on the caravans like: "This is not a work of art", the cyclist who adores Eddy Merckx, the radio-operator (Claude Semalle), the famous writer Piere Mertens (pie-thrower Noël Godin) who cannot dress up his armchair on the sand at the beach, are such funny characters that you must laugh with them. The boxing-match is realistic with a real challenger of Muhamed Alli and it is one of the big moments in the movie. The beauty-contest reveals something about people on holiday because they prefer watching beautiful girls rather than a play by Bertold Brecht. Then there are the returning Belgian items like frites, beer and football. The intellectuals who try to bring the working class near to culture and literature must admit their failure. But the representative of the Belgian Ministry of Culture (Jan Bucquoy) finds satisfaction in the fact that his daughter who was kidnapped and who came back on the caravan park, admires him for his determination.

The story tells us the relation between a father who works as a cultural entertainer in a camping and his daughter who comes back after she was kidnaped, and the adventures of the habitants of the camping who all have a peculiar sex-life. The woman of the camping owner, miss Vandeputte (Lolo Ferrari), wants to be loved and she tries to start a relationship with some guys of the camping: the radio-operator, the postman, a man disguised as the hero of the comics "Tintin". Nobody is interested in an life-interview with a famous writer. The entertainer wants to attract people to a boxing-match, a song contest, a beauty contest, but this is not what the ministry of culture wants. He finds happiness with his daughter who supports him. The story ends bad for miss Vandeputte: Lolo is wrapped by her husband like a mummy and thrown into the sea. The camping is visited by the police and everybody leaves the camping in a feeling of despair. I liked the movie because it shows something about my country, but it is universal and people from other countries will also recognize people of their own country in this movie.

Camping Cosmos is the surrealist belgian movie of the last ten years. Jan Bucquoy, the spiritual son of the great surrealist Marcel mariën, shows us how strange the belgians can be. Surrealism seems to be the belgian way of life. Bucquoy shows us a large range of people from all horizons, having all their own ambitions and finding all the most unexpected ways to realize their dreams In the camp we meet pie-thrower Le Gloupier, Tintin with his dog working now as a radio-animator,Lolo Ferrari who cannot find the real love: all this shown in a holliday atmosphere with the beach and tourists . All is told with a lot of sensibility, some times a little vulgarity, but if you read between the lines you'll laugh about it and appreciate it at its best.

This second opus of "The Sex life of the Belgians" is one of the most entertaining piece Bucquoy delivered so far. In an almost mainstream colorful setup, the director takes us deep into shameless Belgian trailer park culture. Summer camp sized, the belgo-bucquoy society including its regular nefarious revolutionary characters and adult-fake Tintin is quiet enjoyable. Featuring a couple of neat local celebrities such as Arno or Noel Godin (totally insane as usual), and dead but cult figure, the hyper breasted Lolo Ferrari.

Apology of bad Belgian taste

This movie is in the tradition of Belgian Surrealism: Marcel Broothaerdts, Marcel Marien... but there was never a Belgian Surrealist long feature movie. So there it is now.

Camping Cosmos develops around the items: Beer, Football and Revolution. Behind, there is the strange story of the daughter of the cultural animator who returns at the campsite where her beloved father is after she was kidnapped in Italy. One does not always know where one should find himself in this patchwork of beauty contests and song contests. The pie throwing of Pierre Mertens is a story in itself too. I believe that the author wanted to give an impression of Belgian working class families on a holiday camp. There is no culture, only sport and entertainment.

Everybody looks discouraged because of their interrupted sex life that cannot take ground in this unnatural surroundings with its deprived individuals at the edge of society.

The camp site is manned by fascinating individualistic persons who live a life without adventure. There is no hope for a better life on this Belgian beach which has everything of a nudist camp without the flair and the passion of a normal sex life.

So this second part of the "Sexual Life of the Belgians" is not only a statement of the lack of cultural life in this vacation circumstances, but also of the sentimental emptiness of the common Belgians at retirement.