Educating the boy -- Belgian films at KV

6. 7. 2010 / Ema Čulík

In both these films, the boys' authority figures only want the best for them. But they end up having the exact opposite effect. In the first film, De helaasheid der dingen/The Misfortunates (2009), the source of the harm is clear. Young thirteen-year-old Gunther lives in a poor town with his poor father, three uncles, and his grandmother. All the men are extremely energetic drinkers, who are also all unemployed, save for Gunther's father Marcel, who is a postman. (Often to be seen riding through the town on his bike, drunk.) They spend most of their time down the pub (or nearby, acting out extremely inventive drinking games that they have come up with) or chasing women. They have very simple principles -- they like drink, women, Roy Orbison, and they all honour their family name: Strobbe. Gunther loves his family, but he comes to recognise that perhaps they might not be living in the most healthy way possible. After some encounters with people from the outside world (which are not taken lightly in the family -- cue drunken brawls ) he decides to go to boarding school in order to spend more time concentrating on having his own life, rather than spending it pouring drinks and lighting cigarettes for his father when he has woken up in the morning and can't get out of bed for the shakes. While at boarding school, the young boy is finally encouraged by teachers and starts to flourish as a writer, which later becomes his career -- the whole tale is told as a flashback from the viewpoint of adult Gunther as he sends off manuscript after manuscript to publishers, and then finally gets his break and pulls himself away from the old life that his family is still living, albeit less intensely.

The film is full of charm as these four loser brothers really are quite lovable, despite their misguided principles and choices. Because we can understand why Gunther loves them, the film creates a real conflict between being true to your family and being true to yourself. Gunther is only thirteen and his father and uncles are mentally the same age as him, so if anyone was going to stop him following the same path, it would have to be Gunther himself. The colour and inventiveness with which the story of the family is told brings them to life and brightens the comedy and darkens the tragedy, showing us how easy it would be to just fall into the same pattern as them.

In a way, the brothers Strobbe's pride and obstinacy do teach the young boy a good lesson, of self-respect, of not letting anyone push you around, and sticking to your guns to do what you want and fulfil your dream. The difference between them and Gunther is that he managed to find a dream that could take him further than the local pub.

In the other film, Élève libre/Private Lessons (2008) the boy is less lucky. He, too, is not doing well at first, but things just go from bad to worse. Jonas, seventeen, is good at tennis, but has just failed his end-of-school exams. Denied the possibility of retaking the year by his teachers, and denied money for a private school by his separated parents, he decides to study independently and take the 'Jury' exam -- apparently some high school equivalent -- in order to avoid going to technical college (which is for 'losers' -- I don't know what he thinks makes him better, as he demonstrates very few if any admirable characteristics). Some friends of his from the tennis club, who happen to be thirty-something professionals, decide to help him study for this exam. It is not explained why on earth they would want to be friends with a mediocre adolescent, unless he is for them to project their own neuroses onto. This explanation seems more and more likely as they have a peculiar idea about what Jonas's 'education' should entail. It turns out that they have more in mind for the lessons than just his academic subjects, and what results is a platter of sexual scenes involving all sorts of participants, alternating in the typical Gallic hedonistic style with gastronomic indulgence à table . The film is a gradual process of sidling suspectly up to limits and then crossing over them, meanwhile pretending that nothing has happened. The adults inch Jonas into a corner, accusing him of ingratitude when he starts to object to the sexual direction his education is taking. The adults talk, talk, talk, showering him with clever words that he can't understand and can't stand up to. The main 'teacher', Pierre, reads him Camus for the exam, but it is clear that he is justifying his own inappropriate behaviour (blowjobs on studybreaks) with this philosophising. Camus' existentialism argues that social rules and practices are all false creations that should be questioned. Why should I love my parents? I have plenty of reasons not to. Why should I die for my country? Why shouldn't I have sex with my teenage student who is staying in my flat and relying on me for help? Pierre claims to always question preconceptions, for example, that heterosexuals are just cowards who refuse to listen to their own desires. But he never questions his own impulses. He has decided that he will question everything outside himself but never reassesses his own system of judgement. The viewer, hence, starts to realise that he is not the generous and respectable authority figure that we saw at first, but just another teenager (just a little bit older) who also has his own problems in the world.

The characters have very questionable morals, but the film itself does not necessarily support what they are doing. We are like silent bystanders, taking everything in with wide eyes along with the clueless Jonas. But by showing us these explicit and unexpected scenes together with the adults' postulations, the film poses the question: to what extent are these philosophies really practicable in real life? Perhaps those social norms are there for a reason? Seeing what is happening to Jonas, the viewer feels more and more embarrassed for him, and all the more appalled at how these people who are trying to 'help' him are in fact causing massive harm. The picture examines the fine lines that separate teaching and empathy, taking pride in your students, caring for them, trying to help them as much as possible, and interference, messing up someone's life when they should be able to do it themselves.

Élève Libre is full of complex moral quandaries, and it does pose interesting questions, but in the end the viewer leaves unsatisfied as the characters themselves just are not convincing enough to carry these questions. Jonas is so empty -- arguably that is a good thing as he is an empty vessel into which his 'teachers' can pour their silly ideas. However, the personage is quite unsatisfying as the actor did not reflect the complexity of his situation, rather just stared open-mouthed in bemusement. The motivations of the three 'teachers' is never touched upon, and we never really feel like the characters live for real. The moral question is taken in isolation, and not tested in a convincing fictional reality.

In De helaasheid der dingen , however, the people and stories are so deliciously true and honest that we become truly involved in the story and their lives. If there are explicit or distasteful scenes in this film, they do not feel inappropriate, as they are a part of those characters, and ring true. Élève Libre 's sex scenes, on the other hand, are inserted purely for shock value. They do nothing to move the viewer, and we end up having to consider the whole film theoretically.

These two films both deal with similar problems of family, personal development, formation of the individual, and how this can be influenced or not by the surrounding society. Since this is a question of humanity, there had to be fully formed humans in order to deal with it properly. One film, then, was satisfying and touching, the wonderfully lively De helaasheid der dingen ; whereas Élève Libre was too dry and contrived to really explore its ideas sincerely.

The stills are from l'express.fr.

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