King Of The Belgians is a gentle mockumentary from filmmaking duo Jessica Hope Woodworth and Peter Brosens, which follows the story of fictionalised Belgian king, Nicholas III, and his entourage on a incident-filled journey from Turkey to his homeland.
The basic plot is as follows: Nicholas (Pieter van der Houwen) and his party are on a low-key state visit to Istanbul when a “cosmic disturbance” (a solar flare) strikes. All communications are down.
Unfortunately, this coincides with Belgium splitting in half as the Wallonians – the French speakers of Belgium – declare their independence.
What follows is recorded by a documentary filmmaker, Duncan Lloyd (Peter Van Den Begin), who helps Nicholas escape Istanbul disguised as Bulgarian folk singers.
The rest of the film is a road trip movie, with most of the characters having some sort of epiphany, existential crisis, or self-discovery along the way.
The film is pretty slow in the first 5-10 minutes, with a lot of painfully awkward scenes as the royals get accustomed to being on camera. Scattered among the film are Lloyds’ personal commentary and clarifications – which are definitely needed to understand the movie.
Overall, it’s a charming film, full of quirky local characters (including a friendly Serbian sniper and the barefoot mayor of a Bulgarian village) and it has an uplifting message about finding yourself. There’s nothing new in that, but it’s nicely done.
I really enjoyed it.
4/5
