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.

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.

This movie surprises me every time I look at it. It is hard to believe that Lolo Ferrari is dead because in the movie she is a great actress and she is more than a Barbie-doll. As a Belgian I am able to recognize some of the characters but I think they are universal. The postman with his bag with the initials C.C.C.P. is a secretive person: does he make love with Miss Vandeputte (Lolo Ferrari)? The beach-master (Arno) who is a homosexual, the autistic painter (Herman Brusselmans) who puts slogans on the caravans like: "This is not a work of art", the cyclist who adores Eddy Merckx, the radio-operator (Claude Semalle), the famous writer Piere Mertens (pie-thrower Noël Godin) who cannot dress up his armchair on the sand at the beach, are such funny characters that you must laugh with them. The boxing-match is realistic with a real challenger of Muhamed Alli and it is one of the big moments in the movie. The beauty-contest reveals something about people on holiday because they prefer watching beautiful girls rather than a play by Bertold Brecht. Then there are the returning Belgian items like frites, beer and football. The intellectuals who try to bring the working class near to culture and literature must admit their failure. But the representative of the Belgian Ministry of Culture (Jan Bucquoy) finds satisfaction in the fact that his daughter who was kidnapped and who came back on the caravan park, admires him for his determination.

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.