Camping Cosmos

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.

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.

On this campsite at a Belgian beach the residents want to enjoy life and nothing more. The cultural animator (Jean-Henri Compère) who played also in "La vie sexuelle des Belges 1950-1978" is apparently a fan of the plays of Bertolt Brecht and his "Mutter Courage" but that is not of the taste of the residents who don't show up . I liked miss Vandeputte (Lolo Ferrari) who is behaving as a woman in search for love. The scene with the Russian folksong when she has an orgasm is fabulous. The daughter of the cultural animator (Fanny Hanciaux) is a girl with much sensibility and she tries to understand her father. The writer Pierre Mertens (Noël Godin) is ridiculous with his armchair in the sand at the beach. The radio-operator Tintin (Claude Semal) is pathetic and he is really the person to commit suicide. Football is very important for the Belgians and you see some excerpts of the match Belgium-Russia of 1986 but there is also a boxing-match with the Belgian challenger of Cassius Clay (Jean-Pierre Coopman) for the world-title. There is also a song-contest and a beauty-contest in this movie while the director wants us to show real life at a caravan park in a comical way.

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.