L'Histoire du cinéma 16

In rural Belgium, a police inspector investigates a series of murders that may be connected to sinister supernatural forces.

A cinematographic “cadavre exquis”, whose entrails reveal the odd nature of a (un)certain Belgian cinema. Authors, directors, actors who have proved that imposture could be an act of creation. Convinced that any so-called “new” cinematographic production was in fact a rehash of what had already been made, these pirates of images snuck as forgers, liars, tricksters, usurpers, … Outlaws of the cinema who falsified its form. From the filmed imposture of Man Bites Dog to Jan Bucquoy’s fabulist biopic, everything participates in the dynamiting of institutional language through simulacrum and absurdity. This free journey in the “cine-belgitude” has for vocation to approach these marvellous eccentrics followers of a overexcited and stripping situationism.

The incorrigible Stalinist Bolshevik Igor Yaboutich is determined to destroy the Christian West with the ultimate weapon of mass destruction: the atomic bomb! Charleroi, renamed Karminsky Grad for the occasion, is where this diabolical plan will be carried out. In the nuclear weapons factory, the sinister Vladimir Karminsky and Reinhard Heydrich rule with an iron fist. They mercilessly oppress the working class, who revolt and murder their bosses. Chaos breaks out. The situation seems uncontrollable for the Chinese, Arab, Russian, and German leaders, who are all united here against the Americans. Only Igor Yaboutich remains standing in this city of madness. Will he unleash a new world war?

The third and final film in Jean-Jacques Rousseau's trilogy L'histoire du cinéma 16 (The History of Cinema 16).

Aloïs de Snefeler, a maniacal executioner, dotes on his companion. She goes by the sweet name of Louise and does her father, Dr. Ignace Guillotin, proud. At the widow's feet, heads roll. But not just any heads... The executioner's favorite prey is female. Thieves or adulteresses, magpies or impious women, peasant women or courtesans, they all end up with their heads in the basket. Around Aloïs, the ranks are thinning, but beware! ... He who cuts last cuts well!

Madness has reached its peak in Wallonia.

But why did the sacristan of Obaix devour his father, his mother, a number of women, and his cat? Joseph Charles, sacristan of a small town in French-speaking Europe, loses his wife in highly mysterious circumstances. On her deathbed, she left him a child, whom the sacristan gave to a charity. Living alone since his wife's death, the sacristan is no longer able to cope with the daily grind of his poor existence. The sacristy has become a veritable pigsty and the housework is insurmountable.

The film tells the story of a kind of depraved Dr. Mabuse who takes advantage of his status as a healer to kidnap women who come to consult him in the hope of being cured of various so-called female ailments.

The owner of a café frequented by down-and-outs refuses to comply with the anti-smoking law (in Belgium, smoking has been banned in enclosed public places since July 1, 2011). On that day, a customer, Tony Belzébuth, fails to pay his bill. Olga refuses to serve him another beer until he has paid. Furious, he informs the REF (the Fair Fraud Investigation Unit) of all the misdeeds committed by the owner and going on in this sordid café.

A completely naked man rides a motorcycle through the city. He arrives on a bumpy path at the edge of a wood. There he sees a scarecrow. He grabs his clothes to dress himself in them and hears a voice. He turns around and sees a hanged man with a dagger in his heart. A message hangs from the hanged man warning: “Whoever you are, if you remove the dagger from my heart, you will be cursed. » Fascinated, he goes beyond the prohibition. Struck by the curse, he transforms into a nightmarish creature, ready to relive the ordeal of his predecessor by liquidating everyone.