Co-director of the legendary satirical documentary It happened close to you, Belgian filmmaker André Bonzel will be in Montreal this week to present this film, which is celebrating its 30th birthday this year, as part of a special screening at the Festival du nouveau cinema (FNC). He will also present his latest feature film, And I love to furylike a love letter to the cinema.
” […] and I like fury / things where sound mixes with light”. It is this part of a verse from ” Jewelry “of the Flowers of Evil (1857), by Charles Baudelaire, who inspired André Bonzel for the title of his last film. “It was a visionary definition of cinema. As my film is about the love of cinema and women, it was going perfectly well,” he said in an interview with The duty.
And I love to fury is the first feature film that André Bonzel has signed as a director since It happened close to you. For him, this is the culmination of a long and eminently personal process, since the film is entirely made up of archive images that he has collected since childhood.
The Belgian director recounts his life and his loves (in voice-over) through those of others, with personal film archives, vacation films, family portraits, and other jewels scrounged up at flea markets and everywhere along the way. years. He also comments on his career as a filmmaker, and reuses images from his own films.
“Initially, I was reluctant, because everyone tells their story. Everyone publishes their photos on Instagram or writes their autofiction. But I found that the approach remained interesting, it was the way to make a love letter to the cinema”, affirms André Bonzel, a true enthusiast.
Revisiting a cult film
His cinephilia was reflected in his first films, including It happened close to you (1992). A satire on a Belgian TV show of the time, the film takes the form of a mockumentary that follows the character of Ben, an arrogant and talkative serial killer, through his murders, each one more violent than the last. others.
This eminently personal project, André Bonzel co-directed it with his friends from the Rémy Belvaux film school and Benoît Poelvoorde. Not only It happened close to youshot in 16 mm with the means at hand, testifies to impressive formal qualities for such young filmmakers, but it also brilliantly denounces the setbacks of unscrupulous voyeuristic television.
As much And I love to fury that It happened reflect a great need for freedom expressed by the filmmaker. He describes himself as an eternal teenager, and says he hasn’t seen the time pass since the frantic years when It happened premiered at Cannes and became a cult hit: “I don’t feel like I’m getting old and growing up, it’s a film that made a huge impression in Belgium, and that people still talk to me about . »
” It happened close to you has not aged. On the one hand, the black and white gives it a timeless side, and the film still makes people laugh, then the criticism from the media remains very topical”, indicates André Bonzel. Paradoxically, among other things because of the great liberties of tone that it allows itself and the insolence of its protagonist Ben, it is difficult to imagine this film being released today.
“We wanted to make Ben a horrible character. In the film, he does unacceptable things. We wanted to elicit reactions from the spectator as his gestures become serious, since at the start, this character who says racist and sexist things appears to be sympathetic and funny,” explains André Bonzel.
Some scenes from It happened close to you would certainly not pass today’s test of political correctness. We only accept them—and we laugh about them—because we situate them in their time.
André Bonzel also admits to being divided over It happened close to you. Although he always likes to revisit his film, he remains nonetheless disappointed to have been harmed by his distributors: “The film was a great success, but we never touched the money from the receipts . We went to trial, and we won, but that didn’t fix the situation. »
After the immense success that the film knew and the opposing reactions that it could arouse, André Bonzel remains proud of his heritage, and defends it well in his last film.