ABSTRACT

The fifth chapter examines films in which characters no longer have a firm footing in ‘reality’. It pits Rademakers’ MIJN VRIEND against Maas's horrorthriller DE LIFT to claim how a story can benefit from a bit of paranoia. Whereas the protagonist in PARANOIA becomes deranged because he thinks he resembles a wanted war criminal, the woman in the early feminist classic Van DE KOELE MEREN DES DOODS falls victim to an oppressive culture dominated by Calvinism and ‘male wisdom’. Most of these characters ask themselves epistemological questions such as ‘How can I interpret the chaotic world to which I belong?’ Such a question tips over into ontological concerns: ‘Does the world of which I think I am part, exist or not? Am I a figment of someone's imagination?’

KEYWORDS

Paranoia and psychosis – Hysteria – Epistemological and Ontological Questions – Todorov's the Fantastic – Nederhorror

At the very end of MIJN VRIEND: HET VERBORGEN LEVEN VAN JULES DEPRAETER [THE JUDGE's FRIEND] (Fons Rademakers, 1979), the main protagonist Jules Depraeter looks into the camera and says triumphantly: ‘They believed me.’ Jules had just heard the verdict of the judge and the jury: he was sentenced to fifteen years in prison, but his ‘good friend’, the inquiry judge John Jensens, was sentenced to no less than twenty years. Their accounts contradicted each other so completely that it was impossible for them both to have interpreted events accurately. ‘They believed me’ can imply that Jules’ testimony was validated because it was closer to the ‘truth’, or it could mean his story was more convincing to the jury. I will refrain from any comparisons to the real-life case, widely covered in the Belgian press in 1978, but if one is to follow Rademakers’ presentation of events leading up to the courtroom drama, the conclusion seems inevitable: Jules is a liar and a cheater, and the inquiry judge made some unfortunate choices, partly out of gullibility. Due to Jules’ vibrant personality and his smooth talk, the sheepish judge was framed. The purport of MIJN VRIEND is unmistakable: the judicial system can do injustice to a suspect. The fact that there is a conflict between the letter of the law and the viewer's sense of justice has offered building blocks for many a fine tragedy.