Camping Cosmos

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Camping Cosmos
Directed by	Jan Bucquoy
Produced by	Francis De Smet
Written by	Jan Bucquoy
Starring	Lolo Ferrari Noël Godin Arno Hintjens Jan Decleir
Music by	Serge Gainsbourg Vera Lynn George Gershwin
Cinematography	Michel Baudour
Editing by	Matyas Veress
Distributed by	Transatlantic Films Brussels
Release date(s)	1996
Running time	88 min.
Country	Belgium
Language	French
IMDb profile

Camping Cosmos is the second comedy in the film trilogy The Sexual Life of the Belgians (of which La Vie sexuelle des Belges 1950-78 is the first part), starring Claude Semal, Lolo Ferrari, Noël Godin, Herman Brusselmans. The movie's tagline is: Revolution, football (soccer), beer and frites (French Fries). It is an unconventional and non-conformist story of the sexual habits of Belgians. Cosmos refers to the eternity of heaven in full contrast with this little campsite where so many people live together with their problems and limited view of the world. It also refers to the Russian cosmonauts (national anthem of the Soviet Union) who explored space, but who as communists did not believe in an afterworld. Is there any hope for a better life on this planet at the camping?

Miss Vandeputte (Lolo Ferrari) and Mister Vandeputte, owners of Camping Cosmos.

1 Plot
2 Comments
3 Trivia
4 External links

[edit] Plot

We see Belgians on holiday in a caravan park at the beach in the year 1986 with the first warnings of AIDS. The aim of the campsite entertainer is to bring culture to the common people but they are not interested when the play of Bertolt Brecht Mother Courage and Her Children is shown. Then he launches a beauty contest, a song contest and a boxing match between the challenger of Cassius Clay and the former European champion. The story goes in a fast tempo because the film editor was handling the first digital equipment at that time (so called clip-generation). The first kiss, the first sex goes very rapidly and the camera is harassing the secret life of the habitants of this colourful camping.

Eve and her boyfriend

[edit] Comments

Camping Cosmos is a parody on the classical Beach Party films. The movie starts with the evergreen song Maria Elena and the view of a bird overlooking the campsite. Is this not a signal for the upcoming paradise? Lolo Ferrari coming out of the sea as an Aphrodite with the song of Vera Lynn (Land of Hope and Glory: Belgium?) and having her first orgasm with the comic strip Tintin in the Congo, is focused on as a central figure, but the movie treats all characters with the same interest (in this movie Lolo Ferrari has the looks of Brigitte Bardot). Camping Cosmos has a correct balance between an astonishing script and the development of the psychology of the different caravan (travel trailer) owners. The influence of Jacques Lacan is imminent: Sex is the little Death. Arno Hintjens and Jan Decleir as a homosexual couple are really funny. Noël Godin as the eternal pieing-pope plays a convincing Pierre Mertens. The protest of the younger generation (Eve and her boyfriend, Antje de Boeck, Ulrique the terrorist) refers to Traité du savoir-vivre à l'usage des jeunes générations(The Revolution of Everyday Life) by Raoul Vaneigem. The citations of Louis Scutenaire and the détournement publicitaire refer to surrealism (Marcel Mariën).

Mother Courage

[edit] Trivia

The movie is a rare surrealist cult movie which uses the technique of Verfremdungseffekt which means that the spectator is not supposed to feel sympathy for whatever feelings of the protagonists in the movie. Their sex life is of no interest, how peculiar it may be: sodomy, homosexuality, masturbation, rape, sado-masochism, sex with dogs and dolls, prostitution. The illusion is created that it is all far away and not related to us. The only artist never speaks (=the autistic painter). There is also the idea that common people on holiday do not care about what is happening in the "real life", they live on an island (something like an Utopia: De Optimo Republicae Statu deque Nova Insula Utopia or the island Laputa peopled with struldbrugs and Yahoos) at this time of the summer, isolated from everything and everybody. Their Paradise Regained (= free sex and entertainment, sport, beerdrinking (boozing) and frites in abundance, sea & sun, no working schedule; Eve (Bible) being the main character), only lasts for the four weeks of their holiday. After the summer the normal life and the daily working routine starts again, the monotony and suffering in the grey cities of Southern Belgium: (Charleroi, La Louvière, Borinage etc...).