"Het verdriet van België" (1995) TV mini-series

User Rating:

7.2/10   

Director:

Claude Goretta

Writer:

Hugo Claus (novel)

Release Date:

21 December 1995 (France)

Genre:

Drama

Plot Keywords:

TV Mini-Series | Based On Novel

Cast

Marianne Basler	...	Constance
Damiaan De Schrijver
Mathias Engelbeen	...	Louis 11 jaar
Dirk Roofthooft	...	Nonkel Florent
Rik van Uffelen	...	Staf
Hilde Uitterlinden
Greta Van Langhendonck
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Marisa Berenson	...	Madame Laura
Louis Bogaerts	...	Nonkel Omer
Sam Bogaerts
Alex Cassiers
Ronny Coutteure	...	Nonkel Robert
Ronny Cuyt	...	Louis volwassen
Lolo Ferrari
Pim Lambeau
Marilou Mermans	...	Zuster Koedde
Ann Petersen
Jenny Tanghe
Wim Van Den Driessche
Rudi Van Vlaenderen		(as Rudy Van Vlaenderen)
Rüdiger Vogler	...	Lausengier

Also Known As:

"Le chagrin des Belges" (France)
"The Sorrow of Belgium"

Country:

France | Netherlands | Belgium

Language:

Dutch

Color:

Color

Filming Locations:

Brugge, West-Vlaanderen, Belgium

Company:

Belgische Radio en Televisie (BRTN)

Flanders and the War Years

I remember the film adaptation of Hugo Claus's "The Sorrow of Belgium" quite well. Sunday evening, December 1994. The premiere was a heavily mediated event with broadsheets containing interviews with Hugo Claus and Claude Goretta. Flemish families were hooked on the television and were entranced by the angelic appearance of Mathias Engelbeen (silverblond, long eyelashes, you know the type), who makes an endearing Louis Seynaeve, epitomizing (and romanticizing) Flemish boyhood. Apart from this cuteness, however, the film has little to offer. Hugo Claus's novel investigates the psyche of an adolescent who discovers his true identity in a society that is first scourged by catholic propaganda, then by Nazi propaganda and finally by American gung-ho. Hugo Claus has always been keen to incorporate some Freudian ideas into his works and "The Sorrow of Belgium" establishes a link between unresolved oedipus complex and totalitarian thinking in fear of "The Other". As Louis struggles with his obsession for the mother, Flanders sees the German occupation as an opportunity to restore its 'natural condition' but finds its ambitions quashed by the restoration of Belgium in 1945. Castration anxiety operates at two levels; Louis' confusion is that of his country. After some flirts with catholic orthodoxy and Hitler Youth, Louis realizes that the obsessive quest for purity is always a death-dealing illusion and he abandons his childhood haunts and hang-ups as he decides to become a writer, thus replacing the modernist imperative of truth-seeking and purity by postmodern deconstruction. The film falls short of conveying this message. The script is an insult to the novel, all propped up by a band of Flemish well-known actors, Marianne Basler as the object of oedipal love, and bad sync to boot.