Camping Cosmos

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.

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.

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.

This second part of "The Sexual Life of the Belgians" is more like a satire upon people on a holidays-campsite. British working-class on a camping ground would never react like the Belgians do in this movie. Lolo Ferrari as madame Vandeputte is very funny. The scene with the song-contest too. One wonders why people on their holidays behave so strange; because they are far away from their home, their friends and relatives? The sexual aberrations of the protagonists are a curiosity and do make us reflect on the Dutroux-case. But the film has a moral statement: sex without love has no value. The other Belgian items are well placed, such as there are: beer, French(=Belgian) frites and soccer. Indeed one is well aware of the universal message of the movie which is also a defense of the naturalness of youth in the person of the daughter of the organiser of cultural events (Jean-Henri Compère). Culture and pleasure can they go together when people only think about doing nothing during their vacations?

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.