The Barefoot Emperor (2019)

Directed by: Peter Brosens, Jessica Woodworth | 99 minutes | comedy | Actors: Peter Van den Begin, Lucie Debay, Udo Kier, Geraldine Chaplin, Bruno Georis, Titus De Voogdt, Maya Storm Brosens, Sinisa Labrovic, Darko Stazic, Pieter van der Houwen

In the sea near the historic Croatian city of Pula lies the Brijuni archipelago, an exotic archipelago that forms a world in itself. From 1953 until his death in 1980, Brijuni – consisting of two larger and ten small islands – served as the summer residence of the Yugoslav dictator Josip Tito. He received heads of state, political leaders and Hollywood stars such as Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and Sophia Loren. Our own Queen Juliana and Prince Bernhard also liked to visit. Animal lover Tito created his own wildlife paradise and, in addition to donkeys, goats and peacocks, also flew in zebras, ostriches, elephants and a llama. The director duo Peter Brosens and Jessica Woodworth, operating from Belgium, found it remarkable that no film was ever shot at Brijuni, because this exotic archipelago lends itself perfectly for that. Then we’ll do it ourselves, they must have thought. Brijuni became the setting for ‘The Barefoot Emperor’ (2019), the unconventional and absurdist sequel to their 2016 ‘mockumentary’ ‘King of the Belgians’.

In that earlier film we saw the taciturn Belgian King Nicholas III (Peter van den Begin) who, while traveling through the Balkans, went in search of himself. ‘The Barefoot Emperor’ picks up on this: in a crazy situation in Sarajevo, where the murder of Franz-Ferdinand of Austria is reenacted, Nicholas is hit by a bullet. When he wakes up, he finds himself in a sanatorium on Brijuni, where Tito received hundreds of kings, presidents and movie stars. The sanatorium is run by the crazy Dr. Kroll (Udo Kier in a typical Udo Kier role). While Nicholas recovers from the wound to his ear, a friendship develops with the eccentric Lady Liz (Geraldine Chaplin) and he is confronted with the current situation in Europe: the right-wing radicals take power, the EU and Belgium no longer exist and migrants are stationed in one of five ‘visitor centres’: Malta, Kosovo, Macedonia, Wallonia or Luxembourg. The architect of this ‘Nova Europa’ is the mysterious Dr. Ilse von Stroheim, who comes to delight the sanatorium with a visit. She has set her sights on the taciturn (and in her eyes very accommodating) Nicholas to become the emperor of Nova Europe.

‘The Barefoot Emperor’ skillfully weaves together the past and present of Europe into an absurdist whole, carried by the apparently unworldly Van den Begin, who walks around largely amazed and dazed to marvel at all the remarkable things he has around him. sees around. Countless historical references pass by; For example, it is wonderfully alienating that all the guests of the sanatorium have been assigned the name of a former head of state or movie star of the past as a pseudonym. Every so often someone is called over the intercom (“Will Che Guevara report to aromatherapy ASAP? or “Will Fabiola and Juliana go to the front of the building to pick petals?”), what a hilarious running gag forms. The activities that are held in the sanatorium also make you laugh: remarkable forms of yoga to a completely unique interpretation of land grab. And the Belgians also have a good dose of self-mockery: the fact that Nicolaas ends up at Brijuni in the first place is the result of miscommunication between a Flemish sniper and a Walloon officer…!

Brosens and Woodworth place a strong focus on their visual language and style; the guests of the sanatorium are all dressed in white and because their activities are all carried out in a very disciplined way, this produces beautiful images. The regularly heavily used classical music fits in seamlessly with this. Due to all that attention for the stylistic side, the attention for the characters and the story unfortunately falls a bit. The references are nice, but the criticism of society and politics doesn’t quite come out as you would like. A suggestion of urgency is created, but as a viewer you don’t feel it for a moment. The director duo can still make a big hit there. ‘The Barefoot Emperor’ is therefore especially successful as a stylized, absurdist political comedy full of funny details (the fate of the poor lama!), in which you feel like Van den Begin and his entourage (Bruno Georis, Titus De Voogdt and Lucie Debay). ) wondered and in despair: what kind of madness have I ended up in?