Unknown and long-forgotten movies from my home country intrigue me, and - luckily for me - there's also a Belgian TV-channel that specializes in broadcasting these titles. Why do clearly prestigious and seemingly well-financed (at their time of release) film-projects end up in total oblivion? Well, in the case of "Kruisbergstaat 6", it's not too difficult to see why... It's a painfully boring and thoroughly unremarkable effort.
The script is adapted from a novel, which - I reckon - must be even more boring, and follows the aristocratic Verbrugge siblings from Ghent, East Flanders, that live off the family fortune since their parents died in a road accident. Brother Octave is a successful public construction contractor and invited the talented French architect Hugo to their home to help with a prestigious project. Hugo falls in love with Octave's timid sister Françoise. Both Françoise and the chronically ill & embittered oldest sister Aurelie are deeply upset with Octave because he wants to marry a middle-class waitress, which is a disgrace for the family name. Hugo then discovers there's also a third sister, Charlotte, but everyone acts very strange when her name gets mentioned.
Sounds potentially interesting, but - believe me - for more than three quarters of the film nothing remotely interesting happens. There's endless footage of the lead characters sitting at the breakfast table, barely speaking a word, of pointless sequences in bars or night clubs. And then, suddenly out of nowhere, a few gruesome murders are committed, and the explanation is beyond imbecilic. In fact, the only reason why I still somewhat enjoyed watching "Kruiswegstraat 6" is for the Ghent filming locations, and particularly to see how drastically things have changed in 50 years. I didn't grow up in Ghent, but I live now near to it. The project Octave is building clearly will become the viaduct/overpass that I use almost every week. The narrow streets and historical buildings in the city center haven't changed, but nowadays everything is made traffic-free whereas here there still are cars everywhere. It's an odd sight.
