Cinema
Whitey
De Witte van Sichem
Robbe de Hert · 1980
Synopsis
Sichem, in 1901, as socialism gains ground in the Campine. Louis Verheyden, whom everyone calls the White One because of his bleached hair, is the youngest son of a poor family of farm labourers. A poor pupil, he plays one prank after another, which his father punishes with beatings, and he has to spend his days off working for a tyrannical farmer, Coene. For a while he escapes into a novel by Hendrik Conscience found at the back of a storeroom at the school.
Context
This is the second adaptation of Ernest Claes's novel, after the one of 1934. The screenplay, by Fernand Auwera, Gaston Durnez and Ernest Claes, makes it a social critique rather than a comedy: the exploitation of farm workers by the propertied and the role of the Church are denounced in it. The reconstruction of peasant life draws on compositions by painters, including Millet's The Angelus. A contemporary frame, set in the workshops of Averbode Abbey, opens the story.
Who it is for
A feature film of one hundred and eight minutes, in Dutch, in colour, adapted from a classic Flemish novel.
Prizes and reception
More than five hundred thousand viewers in Belgium, a national record on its release, and its author's greatest success.