Padre Daens

Beautiful depiction of the workers' fate during the first half of the 20th century. Priests and church are supposed to play their role of keeping the workers at peace. When father Daens resists he gains such a response that the powers have to bend. True story! Went up for an Oscar but due to the fact that the French had a lot more money to support their film it fell short. Brilliant role for Jan Decleir, mostly known for his one-man plays, adaptations of Dario Fo. Proof you do not need violence or sex to make a movie exciting. What is needed is a strong story (very much so in this case) and a couple of great actors. If you have the chance to watch it, do so, it will alter your view on the world, there are not enough (nice) movies of this kind around. Again: it all happened as it is depicted here.

Jan Decleir stars as the real-life populist preacher Father Daens, who helped textile workers in Europe struggle for justice in the late 19th century. This is a very moving and powerful film which squarely takes on many problems which our modern industrial societies have inherited from the Industrial Revolution.

Especially heartbreaking and infuriating are the scenes which juxtapose young factory children being overworked, abused and mangled by the textile machines with rich and powerful nobles around their sumptuous dinner tables. The emotional high point of the film, for me, came when Daens gives an impromptu speech in a church, shouting out, "People scream, 'we are hungry!' Loud and clear!" It is difficult not to be emotionally caught by such a scene.

Father Daens ultimately shows in this film what Gandhi told someone: that one's religion is in one's actions, not in one's words, clothes or wealth.

This is the best Belgian film I've ever seen. And since I am Belgian, I've seen a lot of them. Antje De Boeck is such a wonderful actress and Jan Declair is absolutely our best actor. You could recently see him in "De zaak Alzheimer" as Ledda. The story is as realistic as possible, but luckily there is that little romance to bring happiness in the rather depressing story. To understand the full beauty of the movie you should have to understand Dutch, or even both French and Dutch (as most Flemish people do (=inhabitants of the northern half of Belgium)), because even the accents have been adapted to the right time span. Just a note to the Flemish: (Ik zal het in het Engels moeten doen, want deze site accepteert niet veel in het Nederlands) If you haven't seen this movie yet, you should do it right away! You can learn more from it than from all history classes at school! Because in my opinion, history is still about people, not about facts.

This is an excellent movie that has very believable characters. The mixture of French, Flemmish/Dutch, and Latin make this a very interesting movie. The cinematography is also wonderful. Like many movies where French is spoken there is a sad undertone. In many ways it reminds me of Jean de Floret, another wonderful epic. Americans who like foreign films should watch this movie. I hope you like it!

Some of us like to complain about how hard life is. Watch this film, which I think is very close to the reality of life in the late 19th century, and it will put your problems into perspective. Yes, most of the wealth is still in the hands of the happy few. We still need to fight injustice. But in comparison to what you see here, we are currently living in gods paradise. This film also reveals the politics at that time in Belgium (and the western world? ), serving the upper class helped by the church. The harsh reality is enlightened by a few very good jokes (take the ring home. Then you can kiss it as many times as you want). Everything is beautifully embodied by Belgiums finest. Very well directed. After almost 30 years it looks a tad outdated but this doesn't really spoil the party... It's not a science fiction.