Contrary to my fellow coutryman who did the other review, I did not finish the series but watched enough to have good reasons for it.
This is not the first parody of the "true ..." genre, nor will it be the last. In Flanders we've had the ultimate spoof reality series with "Het geslacht De Pauw", a perfect piece of satire made by Flanders' best scenarist who unfortunately also turns out to have taken the idea of womanizing way too far, a fake travelogue from the same author which I couldn't savour all that much and the godfather of fake reality television, "In de Gloria". So our small half-country has a tradition with the genre, even with the main actors playing themselves, so that it's hard to understand what's real.
While this balancing act was in perfect equilibrium in "Het Geslacht ... " and the public was already used to the idea, Thomas De Soete still manages to throw us off with the kind of manufactured self pity, centered around an alleged failure of his as a TV maker in a recent past, that makes you wonder if the self pity and indulgence isn't actually real.
I won't even try to summarize the plot as it doesn't really matter. Nothing is meant to be real in this bizarre story. That's rather clear from the start but still the series claims to play with reality. No it doesn't. Or was the intention to be funny? I didn't think it was for one moment. It was awkward from start to finish, or at least where I decided to end the experience.
The most symbolic scense are those where fellow media figures turn up to awkwardly admit to only be in as a favor to their friend, doubting if they're actually doing him a favor supporting this bound-to-be-a-failure. It's meant to be in jest but it feels embarrassingly real.
At best this is a piece of art in the tradtion of René Magritte and Belgian absurdism. At worst this is a total failure in the tradition of the Pak de Poen-show. It's memorable because it's so uncanny. I can see why people who like their humor on the absurd side, would be die hard fans of this. I can also see why the majority of people, including me, thinks this isn't funny or artistic, merely weird or cringeworthy.
This ambiguity makes me give 5 stars. Watch it at own risk.
This is not the first parody of the "true ..." genre, nor will it be the last. In Flanders we've had the ultimate spoof reality series with "Het geslacht De Pauw", a perfect piece of satire made by Flanders' best scenarist who unfortunately also turns out to have taken the idea of womanizing way too far, a fake travelogue from the same author which I couldn't savour all that much and the godfather of fake reality television, "In de Gloria". So our small half-country has a tradition with the genre, even with the main actors playing themselves, so that it's hard to understand what's real.
While this balancing act was in perfect equilibrium in "Het Geslacht ... " and the public was already used to the idea, Thomas De Soete still manages to throw us off with the kind of manufactured self pity, centered around an alleged failure of his as a TV maker in a recent past, that makes you wonder if the self pity and indulgence isn't actually real.
I won't even try to summarize the plot as it doesn't really matter. Nothing is meant to be real in this bizarre story. That's rather clear from the start but still the series claims to play with reality. No it doesn't. Or was the intention to be funny? I didn't think it was for one moment. It was awkward from start to finish, or at least where I decided to end the experience.
The most symbolic scense are those where fellow media figures turn up to awkwardly admit to only be in as a favor to their friend, doubting if they're actually doing him a favor supporting this bound-to-be-a-failure. It's meant to be in jest but it feels embarrassingly real.
At best this is a piece of art in the tradtion of René Magritte and Belgian absurdism. At worst this is a total failure in the tradition of the Pak de Poen-show. It's memorable because it's so uncanny. I can see why people who like their humor on the absurd side, would be die hard fans of this. I can also see why the majority of people, including me, thinks this isn't funny or artistic, merely weird or cringeworthy.
This ambiguity makes me give 5 stars. Watch it at own risk.
