Hugo Mellaerts

De Muur

Hugo Mellaerts

The Wall is a film originally intended to be screened in the run-up to Belgium's national elections in the spring of 1968. In that year, the tensions between the Dutch- and French-speaking communities were marked by often violent demonstrations and the threat of splitting the country. The story plays with fact and fiction by interweaving found footage of news reports with staged scenes. The main character is the wall which, similar to the division of Berlin, is erected through the centre of Brussels. Although the film was made by the team that compiled cinema newsreels for the company Belgavox, the influence of Henri Storck—the pioneer of poetic realism in the Belgian documentary film—is omnipresent in the camerawork, framing and editing, as well as in the use of amateur actors and filming in the street.