De Onterechte Kampioen
De Onterechte Kampioen (The Unjust Champion) portraits amateur living statue Huub van Bijnen on his way to a contest in Belguim. There he's competing against other mostly professional living statues, giving his best to gain success and acknowledgment for his hard work. We follow Huub in the days before the contest and hear him give his view on his art, how he started out, and how he evolved to what he became now.
The film is funny and dramatic and leaves the viewer with a mixed feeling about this character. Huub can make you laugh simply by his appearance, the way he dresses for the contest or how he gets furious when the rumor reaches him that a rival competitor is cheating by sitting on a hidden chair. You feel sorry for him at the same time, when you see his nerves take a hold of him, when the jury names the winners or even when he's eating an ice-cream in a toy store.
The director of this film is Theo Maassen, a famous dutch comedian who has also acted in several dutch films (Minoes 2001, Amnesia 2001). The filming techniques are way below average, especially considering Maassen's experience in film, he even worked with the late Theo van Gogh (Interview 2003). Although the documentary is very entertaining and easy to sit through, it has the feel of a real life TV-show, where every week an eccentric person's life is filmed for our entertainment. I personally have no problem with that because this film shows Huub van Bijnen for what he really is, a confused man hunting fame and glory.
This short documentary can be found as an extra on Maassen's DVD TM4.
De Onterechte Kampioen (The Unjust Champion) portraits amateur living statue Huub van Bijnen on his way to a contest in Belguim. There he's competing against other mostly professional living statues, giving his best to gain success and acknowledgment for his hard work. We follow Huub in the days before the contest and hear him give his view on his art, how he started out, and how he evolved to what he became now.
The film is funny and dramatic and leaves the viewer with a mixed feeling about this character. Huub can make you laugh simply by his appearance, the way he dresses for the contest or how he gets furious when the rumor reaches him that a rival competitor is cheating by sitting on a hidden chair. You feel sorry for him at the same time, when you see his nerves take a hold of him, when the jury names the winners or even when he's eating an ice-cream in a toy store.
The director of this film is Theo Maassen, a famous dutch comedian who has also acted in several dutch films (Minoes 2001, Amnesia 2001). The filming techniques are way below average, especially considering Maassen's experience in film, he even worked with the late Theo van Gogh (Interview 2003). Although the documentary is very entertaining and easy to sit through, it has the feel of a real life TV-show, where every week an eccentric person's life is filmed for our entertainment. I personally have no problem with that because this film shows Huub van Bijnen for what he really is, a confused man hunting fame and glory.
This short documentary can be found as an extra on Maassen's DVD TM4.