(The Hague) A Dutch court on Tuesday rejected a request by world-renowned French writer Michel Houellebecq to ban a film described as “porn” in which he plays and which would damage his image.
In the movie trailer Kirac 27, directed by the Dutch collective Kirac, the writer appears shirtless kissing a young woman in a bed. Mr. Houellebecq believes that his online publication would have damaged his reputation and that he was portrayed as a “porn star”.
The court “refuses the injunctions requested and orders Houellebecq to pay the costs of the proceedings, estimated to date at 1393 euros”, declared the summary judge of the Amsterdam court.
“It is incomprehensible that Houellebecq participated in the recordings if he found the contract really problematic,” he explained in a written judgment.
The judge rejected Mr Houellebecq’s claims that he only signed the contract because he was depressed and drunk.
The author described the judgment as “very disappointing” and “seriously considering” appealing, his Dutch lawyer Jacqueline Schaap told AFP.
It all started during a dinner in Paris in November 2022, when the writer’s wife, Lysis, told Dutch director Stefan Ruitenbeek that her husband wanted “to make a porn film to counter his gloom”, according to the judgment.
Mr. Ruitenbeek then filmed Mr. Houellebecq in Paris sleeping with a collaborator of the director, Jini van Rooijen, a philosophy student.
The author and his wife then traveled to Amsterdam in December, where they signed a contract for the film.
“I told him that I knew lots of girls in Amsterdam who were willing to have sex with a famous writer out of curiosity, and that I would organize the hotel for him if I had permission to film everything,” says Mr. Ruitenbeek.
But Mr Houellebecq said in court documents seen by AFP that the contract put him “at the mercy” of Mr Ruitenbeek.
On the day of the signing, “I was tired, the day had been long and the necessary wine had already been drunk”, affirmed the writer in these documents. “I don’t have the ambition to become a porn star at my age,” he added.
Relations between the two parties broke down shortly after filming and soured after the trailer aired.
The writer complained that Mr Ruitenbeek gave an interview to the Vice news site in February, in which he said Mr Houellebecq was “really good in bed”.
The Dutch judge found that while the contract was “far from balanced” and granted the director extensive rights, it was not illegal.
The evidence is “insufficient to assume that [le] judgement [de M. Houellebecq] was altered by fatigue and alcohol” or depression, is it written in the judgment.
“I always intended to make a portrait with integrity. I hope that Michel will be happy with the result”, welcomed the director in a press release published by his lawyer.
In February, Mr. Houellebecq lost a similar lawsuit in a French court.