Wallonywood!

For some reason film critics like movies made in Wallonia. Foreign film critics call them 'Belgian'. I call them 'Boring'.

I sometimes think The Dardennes Bros have links with a movie maffia that makes them win prices at the Cannes film festival. La Promesse, Rosetta, Le Fils, L'Enfant and the recent Le Silence De Lorna were all festival favourites. I've seen La Promesse, which I thought was good, and Rosetta, which I thought was bad. And I couldn't care less about the three other releases. Because they are from Wallonia? no! I just don't like pessimist pseudo reality handycam flicks. Period.

I have seen some good Wallonian movies though. I liked Ma Vie En Rose by Alain Berliner (about a little girl trapped in a little boy's body) and the tv movie he made for Arte, Le Mur, was also interesting (about a wall built between Flemish and French Speaking area's in Brussels). Another festival favourite is Jaco Van Dormael who won prizes with Toto Le Héro and Le Huitième Jour. Of course, that's easy if you have a sympathetic down syndrom guy act alongside an established French actor (Daniel Auteuil). But, nice films. Recently, I also went to see a weird horror movie called Calvaire, which made the remote Wallonian villages look very creepy. And of course there's the cult classic C'Est Arrivé Pres De Chez Vous, which was a cult hit abroad under the titel Man Bites Dog!

That's basically it, I think.

If you ask me to name ten famous Walloons, I'd probably start thinking about their actors. Benoit Poelvoorde (good in Man Bites Dog, but horrible in every other movie he's made), Cécile De France (great actrice. I loved her in the French movies L'Auberge Espagnol and Le Secret), Natacha Régnier (also great actrice, especially in the French movies La Vie Revee Des Anges and Les Amants Criminels) and Jeremie Renier (very shy but remarkable actor). The latter three are really good ambassadors for Wallonia. They are talented and physically attractive. However, they don't speak any Dutch at all and are hence, not at all good ambassadors for Belgium.

Anyways, I do sometimes read www.lesoir.be and I sometimes watch the news on La Une if I'm abroad and there's not Flemish network. But apart from that, my only link with Wallonia is through films. Sad ha?