Kunst en Kino

Three erotic stories from classic writers Marguerite de Navarre, Nicolas Restif de la Bretonne and Guy de Maupassant.

Ludovic, a 12-year-old boy from a well-off home who is neglected by his parents, who are part of the art scene, falls head over heels in love with Sofie, the daughter of a piano teacher, when he has to pass a test of courage in the schoolyard during recess. The cheeky girl with the two pigtails likes the boy who is interested in her. They soon get closer and meet in secret places in the city. It is the first love for both of them. Shortly after Sofie's father catches the two lovers naked in bed together in Sofie's room, Ludovic is sent away from Brussels to spend time with his grandparents. But Sofie can't stand it without Ludovic and runs away from home to be with him. The lovers hide in abandoned buildings on the Belgian coast. While parents and police search for the couple, both youngsters find that it is pretty hard to be on their own, especially since an ominous photographer is lurking around the children.

An isolated farmhouse is chosen as a hide-out by criminals Jim and Charlie after an armed robbery. The Deleye family are forced to accept the situation under Jim's brutal domination.

The story of a small and conservative West-Flemish village opposing the construction of a bridge over the Scheldt.

In 1833, when the fledgling Belgian kingdom still fears a Dutch invasion, recruits were selected annually from an age cohort by a draw of lots in each locality. In this grim, then contemporary drama by the 'father of Flemish literature', Hendrik Conscience, Jan Braems, a poor and naive farmers-boy, accepts the not uncommon offer by a rich family to sell his lucky ticket (out) to their son for a hefty sum compared to the miserable labor wages at the time. Army life is even harsher then a farmhand's, especially for a Dutch-speaking an-alphabet who simply can't understand his francophone superiors, and Jan's nature is not complacent enough for military discipline even by todays standards, so he soon gets into all kinds of trouble, including gambling his capital away and a venereal disease. When his girlfriend back home goes looking for him, her life is doomed as well.

Hugo Claus rewrote and directed Friday as the cinematic version of his original 1969 play of the same name. Just as in the play, the story begins with the theme of incest, as the father Georges (Frank Aendenboom) returns from serving his jail sentence for that crime. Unlike the earlier play, however, the film does not emphasize that aspect of the story. When Georges gets home he finds out that his wife Jeanne (Kitty Courbois) has had an illegitimate child by a younger man, Erik (Herbert Flack), and now both of them must somehow try to return to a normal life, given their only too obvious lapses in moral judgment. As the husband and wife try hard to accommodate each other's failings and start to get to know each other again, Erik comes back into the picture. Now the three of them must resolve the deep-seated conflicts that brought them to this emotionally-wrought juncture of love and betrayal.