Being set in the 1970s doesn't make Germaine a museum piece. 'Even now, 40 years on, it remains very current,' says its director, Frank Van Mechelen. The film is based on a play from the period, which was inspired by the author's experience of a wildcat strike. Van Mechelen thinks the questions of community and family loyalty that it raises should still resonate. 'I hope that things are still the same now, that people feel a sort of solidarity, that they want to help each other.'
Text Ian Mundell | Portrait Bart Dewaele
The story revolves around the Debruycker family. Jan (Stany Crets) works at a zinc factory in Balen, a small town in the Kempen region in the north east of Belgium. When a strike breaks out in the winter of 1970-71 he is not too keen on taking part, but he is also not brave enough to follow his bitter old father's advice and cross the picket line. With no money coming in, the family has to get by on what his daughter Germaine (Evelien Bosmans) brings in from working at the checkout in a supermarket in near-by Mol.
But Germaine just wants to have a good time and dreams of escaping to a better life. This begins to seem possible when she catches the eye of Luc (Bart Hollanders), one of the students who have come to the town to show their solidarity with the workers. Meanwhile, Jan and his wife Clara (Tiny Bertels) begin to see what it means to be part of a community pulls together.
'There are places in Flanders where time has stopped completely, and where people are happy to let you film. It's amazing' – Frank Van Mechelen
The Debruyckers are not the kind of family to conceal their emotions, which Van Mechelen says is typical of the Kempen region. 'That appealed to me very much,' he says. 'Here's a family that can quarrel and shout at each other, but which still loves each other very much.'
He thinks that the story could easily have been brought up to date and told as a contemporary drama, but the playwright Walter Van den Broeck was keen to leave it in the 1970s. 'He said: it happened then and we will shoot it like it happened. People will still recognise it.'
Van den Broeck was inspired to write 'Groenten uit Balen' (the title is a play on words that defies translation) by his own involvement in a strike. He was working as a teacher at the time and helped the workers write and print flyers. A character with a similar role in the film is played by his son Stefan, while Walter has a brief cameo as a worker.
The play was first performed in 1972 and became a huge success. 'It's one of the most famous plays in Flanders, of all time. It is really something,' says Van Mechelen. 'It is put on four or five times a year somewhere in Flanders. Sometimes it is good, sometimes not so good, but the story stands up.'
very last girl
The idea of filming the play originated with director Peter Simons, whose father Jos played the grandfather in the original production. He wrote a screenplay with Van den Broeck, but in 2005 tragedy struck when Simons was killed in a motorcycle accident. After that, Van den Broeck turned to his friend Van Mechelen to take up the project. 'I read the script and said yes, it would be an honour to do it.'
Van den Broeck developed a new screenplay with Guido Van Meir, and the project once more moved ahead. The main change they introduced was to broaden the action. 'The whole play takes place in the living room of the family house and never leaves,' says Van Mechelen. 'For the movie it was clear that we had to do something else.' So they made Germaine the pivotal character. 'She has a connection with her family, obviously, but also with the strikers and the students. So we built the script around her.'
'It's one of the most famous plays in Flanders, of all time. It is really something.' It is put on four or five times a year somewhere in Flanders. Sometimes it is good, sometimes not so good, but the story stands up' – Frank Van Mechelen
Van Mechelen decided early on that he wanted to keep the local character of the play. 'From the very start I told Walter and Guido that I wanted to do it in dialect rather than 'proper' Dutch. It's a very nice dialect to perform in.'
But that gave him a casting problem. 'What I wanted was an 18-year old girl who could talk the Kempen dialect,' he says. 'I think I saw 50 or so girls around that age, but I couldn't find her.' Just as he was considering bringing in a voice coach to work with one of the other candidates, the phone rang. 'The casting was finished, but somebody called me and said: "I have a girl. She's still studying, but I've seen her do some things in school and she is amazing." She was the very very last girl that we tested.'
Evelien Bosmans is originally from Mol, the town where Germaine's supermarket is meant to be, so she was a natural for the dialect. Her acting was also just right. 'She did a beautiful casting session,' Van Mechelen recalls. 'She is very impulsive, she's very direct and it was... Yes!'
Most of the rest of the cast are also from the Kempen region, including Stany Crets, who plays the father. This role demanded toughness, which is how Crets is usually cast, but also vulnerability. 'I saw Stany in Old Belgium, which is a TV series that also takes place in the 70s. That was the first time I'd seen him play such a vulnerable character. Then I had no doubt he could play the father.'
Compared to the casting, finding locations that matched the period was relatively easy. Working class housing in Balen had changed since the 1970s, but a substitute was found in the Zelzate neighbourhood of Ghent. Otherwise, everything was filmed where the original strike took place, right down to the factory. 'We also found the exterior of a cinema that looks exactly like it looked 40 years ago,' Van Mechelen says. 'There are places in Flanders where time has stopped completely, and where people are happy to let you film. It's amazing.'