La Vie sexuelle des Belges 1950-1978 (1994) - film review

A writer, Jan Bucquoy, narrates his sex life from his first sexual experience (with a teenage boy a few years older than him) to age 28, where he is living alone having split up with his wife, after having had an affair with a Karma Sutra obsessed model.

This is the first full-length film from the Belgian anarchist Jan Bucquoy, the first of a series of films in which he attempts to use his own personal experiences to portray social and political attitudes in his native Belgium.

The film has a very promising beginning, with Jan Bucquoy showing both creative flair and wit in his writing and direction as he recounts his first amorous experiences as a child.  However, when he moves on to his adult liaisons with the opposite sex, the film quickly loses focus and the wry charm which carries the first part of the film soon evaporates.

In contrast to Bucquoy the child, Bucquoy the adult is a far from sympathetic character - the ranting, sex-obsessed slob bearing scant resemblance to the mischievous but endearing little boy in the first part of the film.  His attitude to towards women appears as superficial and confused as his understanding of communist politics.  We never really get to learn exactly what makes him tick or what he is looking for in his life.

Although the film is not entirely satisfying, it has many plus points in its favour.  The cinematography is an unusual blend of the surreal and the mundane, infused with a quirky comic style which flitters between self-mockery and farce.   Bucquoy’s portrait of his own mother provides the film with its most enduring image, the possessive house-proud woman who casually quips when she notices her husband has died, "it isn’t time", and repeatedly states when she finds a way to save money: "it’s cheaper that way".   If the film is an accurate reflection of the truth, Bucquoy must have had one Hell of an upbringing...

© James Travers 2002

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