A R C H I V E1 9 8 7  
6th
  Bruno Mistiaen
Waterloo
  Belgium 1987
Videotape, 10:19, colour
A diffident woman relates how her husband, Anton, is able to squash flies with his thumb, sowithhing which she herself is unable to do. He always concludes this activity with the words: "I've got to go to Waterloo". Every year he goes to Waterloo with six friends and scales the Leeuweheuvel, the memorial of the famous battle. As the woman is speaking, we see Anton setting off in the midst of a group of men and carrying a red banner symbolising bloodshed. The woman says that she used to fear his brute force hands like coal-shovels that could go right around her waist - but that by now she has become indifferent to it. The composition is typical of Mistiaen's work, especially the use of various inlays within the picture, as for instance in the scaling of the Leeuweheuvel in 'Waterloo'. Above all the other images, we see emerging the head of Anton, the man who believes that remembrance of the fallen at the battle of Waterloo elevates movement to the level of a symbolic act. The commemorative zeal of this brute acquires a certain equivocal character from the information given by his wife.

Marie-Adèle Rajandream

Scenario, production: Bruno Mistiaen, Camera: Luc Jodogne, Editing: Marc Renard, Music: Frank Tommelein, Pieter van Leeuwen, Peter van Hulst, Sets: Carlo Mistiaen, With: Hilde Wils, Thierry Timmermans