Camping Cosmos

Another small-scale Belgian masterpiece.

Don't be fooled by the obvious over-the-top-ness of this production. Camping Cosmos is a film about the differences in culture between (cultural) animator Jan Bucquoy and the so-called lower classes residing at Camping Cosmos. eg: Bucquoy organizes a poetry night, during the 'larger than legendary' football match Belgium-USSR (Mexico '86, 4-3)...

Plenty of elements in the film are deeply rooted in Belgian popular culture. (Tintin, surrealism, Sandra Kim, Eddy Merckx, vacations at the Belgian Coast,etc...)

I'd compare this movie to a Magritte painting... the images you see look so obvious and simple, but remember: ceci n'est pas une pipe!!! There's more to it than meets the eye.

It's a bit like the Simpsons, if you miss the levels beyond the obvious, you'll miss the best part.

This movie is a surrealistic description of a colony of holiday-makers on a camping site at the Belgian beach. They all have one thing in common: they just want to do nothing or have sex. They all develop different attitudes because they think that they feel free far from home. So you see them in a relax way. Miss Vandeputte (Lolo Ferrari) is constantly looking after a new lover. The director of the art-festival at the beach is confronted with the blames of his daughter who claims he is loosing his time with the people of the camping site who never show up for one of his attractions be it a play of Bertold Brecht or an interview with the writer Pierre Mertens (Noël Godin). The residents of the caravan park are only interested in looking at a boxing-match or a beauty-contest. I liked this movie because it shows in a funny way the difference between people when they go on holiday.

This movie ends a first part of the Jan Bucquoy's cinematographic career. Camping Cosmos is in fact the second and the last traditional movie directed by the Belgian director, chief of the "irregulars" Belgian directors. Traditional means spectacular, filmed with 35mm camera, with a technical crew, based on a film script and with a traditional production and distribution system. T hat is the second production of the period called by Bucquoy himself of "temporary integration" in the classical movie system. Bucquoy makes all the possible to provoke the laughter, that's why Camping Cosmos is a very funny comedy, full of citations of the surrealist and "situationnist" culture, full of amazing situations. Also the happy end takes place in this movie! How make a "popular" and intellectual movie? How talk about the Belgian culture to the Belgians? How talk about revolution in early eighties? That's the challenge of Bucquoy who keep on tailing the adventures of his favourite character: Jan Bucquoy. The protagonist of his first movie. Adult and divorced he is now the cultural director of a camping on the Belgian coast trying to learn to the holidaymakers the principal arguments of his counterculture. His daughter's arrival in the camping give him once again the chance to think about his life and dreams. A summer on the Belgian coast, a trip in the Belgian culture. An original portrait of many different universal characters. Really funny.

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.

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.