Benoît Delépine or Michael Kael for the people of Greenland is a polymorphic actor and director. Present in Brussels for a retrospective of his plural work, Benoît gave us the pleasure to exchange with him -in Birkenstocks– at the Hotel Plazza, while he was returning from Lens for the inauguration of the first statue of the president of Greenland. In the cinema of this resolutely punk spirit, we find some key themes: the initiatory journey of a strip of crippled life that, with the sweat of the forehead, fight against windmills.
Anarchy as a compass
Killing the boss, again and again, of Louise Michel (Yolande Moreau), textile worker, who overnight loses his job following the relocation of his factory, to Jean-Pierre Bonzini (Dupontel), who, caught with a ravenous impulse the bowl, mimics the killing of his leader by shooting frantically, like a cowboy intoxicated by the thirst for social justice. The test of work is a test of resilience as the foam of the mattress which, systematically, returns to its form of departure in Le Grand Evening.
His characters are never discouraged by the distances to travel. Join Finland in a wheelchair road movie Untrapped, no worries for Benoît Delépine and his companion forever, determined to revenge the group that disabled them for life in Aaltra. Who thinks Delepine dreamed of his faithful acolyte, Gustave Kervern, with whom he wrote and co-directed his films. This crazy duo started with Avida, probably the most crazy film in their filmography. A tribute to surrealism, Avida led to the creation of a delusional painting during a free shoot, where improvisation of the Franco-Belgian troupe was systematic. A real carnival of bigarré characters wandered to produce a fresco between cinema and painting.
« Without the authority of one, there would be light, there would be truth, there would be justice »
These last films evolve with the time and, from the failure of the boss's death, well-cauled behind the impenetrable veil of the tax haven, it is the technology that now germinates the end of our society. And why not kill the GAFFA, as his last film raises Clear History, where a few digital skinned people are going to attack the Apple and Google hydra, to their head office, in order to remove the personal data that haunt them, who is tracking them?
Bouli Lanners, soberly named God and perched from the top of a wind turbine to farm bitcoin by diverting electricity, doesn't he say it himself during a clear monologue? « Everything's gone into the i-cloud and that's beyond God's skill! Your evil videos are gone to hell. [...] God found stronger than he». Yellow vests, toothless ones, or these forgotten ones, which only have to cross the street to find work or a suit are highlighted by this baroque cinema.
« What do you want, I head awfully to love free freedom»
In The Great EveningOne of the first concerns of one of the characters is eloquent: « Am I gonna get a job back?». Etymological work refers to suffering; on tripalium was an instrument of torture. Work begins as soon as the woman loses the water and gets ready to give birth. And after work, curiously: deliverance. It is the whole dialectic that crosses the work of Delepine. Work kills the way it carries life. At the end of Aaltra, for example, the duo Kervern Delépine, who had gone to avenge the trailer company, did he not end up accepting the work of the one who indirectly led to their misfortune? Precipities in the midst of this sluggishness, these heroes, despite their wandering, to recover, on the road, « freedom ».
Deprived of employment, they have never been more alive. « If you're a free dog, you don't keep your leash. » clam Benoît Poelevoorde in The Great EveningOde to dog punk. These heroes walk towards the horizon, even if they go straight, at random, like Dupontel and Poelvoorde, who in the great night cross lodges, straddling fences one by one of properties, which in their eyes only ask to disappear. Like Rimbaud, poetry guides their existence, it is here also a « poetry of the future » by the movement and action as Jean-Pierre Richard said about the poet.
« Poetry must be made by all and not by a »
What is the property for Kervern and Delepine in Aaltra, when with a Dutch family that welcomes them to dinner, they enjoy themselves until the last crumb, taking the children's food into their hands. Camera behind the duo's shoulder, we see the liquefaction of the parents in front of the indecency and the captivation of these debonary marginals. These friendly parasites loot and steal those they encounter. The first accomplice laugh of the two lascars, originally enemy, appeared only very late in Aaltra, when they were thrown like meat bags and left on the ground by a biker who had naively let the disabled try his bike.
It would be wrong to see only fantasy comedy in Delepine's cinema. In the middle of the consumerist frenzy of the supermarket, Dupontel in The Great Evening Try to simmer by fire in the general indifference of his peers. Benoît Poelevoorde, deliverer Deliveroo, back in tears in Clear history, when a customer spills coffee on his delivery note. In reality, the tragic is often the cousin of black humour and absurdity. « He'll know I drank coffee. » Does he hammer by hitting his finger nervously on the good, salted by hospitality. These scenes gathered end to end, until the desperate scream of Corinne Masiero from the roundabout of a ZAC in his latest feature film recalls the words of Daumal: « Poetry is a cry ». In preview, Benoît Delépine also presented us with an experimental short film, where Brigitte Fontaine spits at the spectator's face, reminding him of how much we would be, at the bottom, masters of cutting the leash. An ambitious goal at a time when, sadly, even Birkenstocks have become property of Bernard Arnauld…
And that makes me a new filmography to discover! Chic maintenance, very alive 🙂
[...] Benoît Delépine could very well have completed this selection. Don't hesitate to read our retrospective and review our interview with this polymorphic and essential director in social cinema. Killing [...]