Blue Belgium

Rob Van Eyck, the director, is a controversial person here in Belgium. This flick was banned as it is told due the story it's all about. I can't tell of that's true that it was banned and that Rob was concerned about his life because persons wanted to kill him. I guess it was some kind of promotion.

Fact is that the story of Dutroux and the gang bangs called the Pink Flamingo's were all through. But Rob tried to connect 'De Bende Van Nijvel' together with Dutroux. Belgium did have it's terrorism back in the eighties with the CCC, extreme left group who laid some bombs here in Belgium, or indeed some terrible raids with innocents deaths just visiting a grocery store. Nevertheless history was written and Belgium did knew a dark history back then, deaths, children being killed, and I can go on and on.

As I said earlier, the combination of De Bende Van Nijvel and Dutroux did work out (never was in reality) but once that part is over this flick falls in stupidity. And the most annoying thing is people coming from Antwerp trying to speak English. They failed. All the actors involved just couldn't pronounce their words perfectly and even some acting was as wooden as it can be.

But this flick is also worth watching for some other reasons, Rob always added Jacques Verbist (Afterman) in his flicks, here he is again playing a numb gangster. But we can also see the decline of Nathalie-Jane Krits (Gina) who came out of another famous Belgian flick She Good Fighter (1995). After this flick she was only seen in a small part in the series Spoed (2003 - 2007). Nowadays she's modelling. But the most notorious name here is Saartje Vandendriessche. This was her first flick ever but went further to Matroesjka's (2005) as Sita were she even showed her juggs. From there on she went further to television even becoming an announcer on VRT, Belgium's television.

There's no blood in this flick and a bit of nudity but people who wanted to see Saartje then this is your moment. If you are into exploitation then this is one to watch.

Gore 0/5 Nudity 0,5/5 Effects 0/5 Story 2/5 Comedy 0/5

Starting with an image of the Atomium in Brussels, "Blue Belgium" intends to give the watcher a possible explanation for what went wrong in Belgium during the last two decades, going from the raids of the "gang of Nijvel", over "pink ballets" and "virgin hunting parties", to the Dutroux-affair. The story connects all this events - made up or real - in a plot-theory being a right-wing attempt to evoke agitation in the country and seize power. Up to that point, I have no complaints. Where things really go wrong is in how this is done. First of all, none of the "actors" seem to be bothered by any acting qualities nor decent knowledge of the English pronunciation, the story is sewed together by the one improbable event after the other, the sound track is purely imbecile ("On the road again" when they are driving a car), and there is not the least attempt to sustain any internal logic, not to mention the technical "qualities" of this creation. In other words: Ed Wood would have done better !

It is clear that this is a very cheap attempt to earn some quick money on an international eager-for-sensation video-watching audience. In principle there is nothing wrong with that as long as they would keep it away from real movie houses and as long as the director and his crew would not be that conceited (or simply naive ?) to expect some applause for "daring to treat this national taboo" (his words !). Ashamed to be a Belgian !