Camping Cosmos

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.

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 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.

Apology of bad Belgian taste

This movie is in the tradition of Belgian Surrealism: Marcel Broothaerdts, Marcel Marien... but there was never a Belgian Surrealist long feature movie. So there it is now.

Camping Cosmos develops around the items: Beer, Football and Revolution. Behind, there is the strange story of the daughter of the cultural animator who returns at the campsite where her beloved father is after she was kidnapped in Italy. One does not always know where one should find himself in this patchwork of beauty contests and song contests. The pie throwing of Pierre Mertens is a story in itself too. I believe that the author wanted to give an impression of Belgian working class families on a holiday camp. There is no culture, only sport and entertainment.

Everybody looks discouraged because of their interrupted sex life that cannot take ground in this unnatural surroundings with its deprived individuals at the edge of society.

The camp site is manned by fascinating individualistic persons who live a life without adventure. There is no hope for a better life on this Belgian beach which has everything of a nudist camp without the flair and the passion of a normal sex life.

So this second part of the "Sexual Life of the Belgians" is not only a statement of the lack of cultural life in this vacation circumstances, but also of the sentimental emptiness of the common Belgians at retirement.

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.