Hector

This video is a reflection of the mindset of the Flemish world in the 70s. While today it's a visual and poetic film about simple simple and basic human emotions and interactions.

It aged well and the acting performance are, while approached from a comedic angle, quite nuanced and carry over the feelings and emotions of this story about an old man that has difficulties dealing with his life, the aspirations of a beautiful lady that feels estranged of her husband, the effort to help achieve glory through his son - as he never had. To very known emotions as anger, love, disappointing, lust, distrust and the ultimate desire to achieve something special, before the last chapter of life catches up on you.

This is the first and best movie starring Flanders' most notorious and funniest comedian Urbanus Van Anus. When he made this movie, he was in his prime, and just coming off his live tour "In't Echt", which is truly the high-point of his career. The movie has the same sense of naive and gentle humour so typical for his live shows, distinguishing Urbanus from other Flemish comedians, who think comedy is all about fart-jokes and sexist innuendo. Urbanus always looks at the world from the viewpoint of a five-year-old, and the movie follows that same kind of pattern, with Urbanus being able to play out his charms, by taking on the part of Hector, a naive man in his thirties who still lives in an orphanage, because no-one wants to adopt him. He has already consoled himself with the fact that he'll have to stay there for the rest of his life, but he seems to be fine with it, since his popularity with the young orphans is enormous. He is almost like a father to them. But then, the unthinkable happens. Hector gets adopted by a baker and his family. At first everything seems to be going quite well, but after a while it turns out that Hector simply isn't comfortable when constantly being surrounded by grownups. And he isn't of much use to the baker either, constantly messing up the poor man's work. The plot thickens, with Hector falling in love with the baker's wife, and the film ends with quite a shocking (I thought it to be) denouement, that contrasts just a bit too much with and otherwise fine example of Flemish comedy-filmmaking. Even today, this film stands out as the funniest Flemish film ever made.

A Belgian farce trying to launch a truant character, Hector, played by the actor Urbanus.

This Hector is an adult child, an orphan raised among children, in a convent school, until adulthood, to suddenly appear in the lives of his baker uncles and completely turn the whole family upside down.

If there are moments when he almost anticipates a Mr. Bean, this Hector ends up falling into banality, on most occasions, embarking on a physical and even childish comedy, albeit with a touch of nonsense that gives it some humor.

The script doesn't help, with an absurd plot and grotesque characters.

In short, a popular comedy, which could have been the beginning of an interesting and tragicomic character, but which fails miserably, allowing itself to fall into easy and silly populism.

The story about an orphan, Hector, who was left alone for more than 30 years. Now, some of his relatives see the opportunity to put him at work in a bakery. But he will prove to be a very clumsy helping hand, who will set their whole life upside down.

There are some memorable scenes in the film. And, like a lot of comedy films, they rely a lot on the comic actors. In this film we see Urbanus at work, at sometimes we have the feeling he is actually playing out the role that he was born to do. This movie is not a highlight in the work of Stijn Coninx, but is worth mentioning.