“It’s going to take me time to digest.”

Presented in preview at the Arras film festival this Saturday, November 16, 2024, “the Maldoror file” freely inspired by the Dutroux affair grabbed the public. A dense and difficult film, but absolutely useful so as not to forget the scandal that shook Belgium in the mid-1990s. The film will be released on January 15, 2025.

There are more than 600 spectators in the room. The screening has just ended this Saturday, November 16, 2024 at the Arras film festival. The audience applauded, but remained silent, as if stunned by what they had just seen. Already presented at the Venice Film Festival, “The Maldoror File” is one of those films from which you do not emerge unscathed. “I was very moved”tells us a visibly shaken spectator: “It actually upset me to see this film. I admit that it will take me time to digest“.

How can we “digest” 2h30 of a fiction largely inspired by the Dutroux affair? The names have been changed. The main character never existed. However, everything is there. The faces of little girls on the front pages of the newspapers. The mobilization of parents on television. And above all the investigation full of slowness and gray areas.

“It’s a film which is partially and freely inspired by the Dutroux affair”insists the Belgian director. “This is not a film about the Dutroux affair”. Fabrice du Welz to me “the audacity to face the dragon”, but in his own way. He first wanted to make a cinema film, he admits, “like a thriller, a detective, a neo-noir”. The dramaturgy is breathtaking, the characters and the settings are numerous. We are far from a simple story of facts.

The viewer is thus taken in the footsteps of a fictional character. Constable Paul Chartier is the son of a gangster and a prostitute. He is in love with Gina, a young Italian woman with whom he marries. The two young people have childish faces, they are happy… Happiness seems suspended… before shattering.

The police came so close to saving these kids. How do we live with that? How do we live with this weight? How do we live with this guilt?

Fabrice du Welz, director

Paul Chartier’s life is turned upside down after he hears whispers in a suspect’s house during a search. The scene is real which makes it all the more dramatic. “The gendarmerie was so close to saving these kids. How do we live with that? How do we live with this weight? How do we live with this guilt?” adds Fabrice Du Welz. This moment is decisive in reality as in fiction. From him comes tragedy.

The main character may insist, but he remains powerless in the face of an omnipotent administration. He goes crazy. “It’s a film about obsession“, continues the director. “He will confront a sprawling evil. (…) He who comes from a broken environment, who has become a policeman with this ideal of justice will realize that corruption is everywhere and that it suffocates everything.”

“The Maldoror file” is therefore above all a denunciation of the dysfunctions of Belgian society in the mid-1990s. A time when, preoccupied by a proposed merger, the investigative services of the gendarmerie, the police and the municipal police did not communicated more in Belgium. Fabrice du Welz was 20 years old then. An age where we believe “that we are more or less protected“. He discovers the opposite.

Four little girls were found dead in 1996: Julie, Mélissa, An and Eefje. Sabine and Laëtitia are saved. The errors in the investigation are coming to light. The Dutroux affair becomes a state affair. 320,000 people marched in Brussels in October 1996.”People in Charleroi were on the front line. They were ostracized, mocked. For me, the Dutroux affair is a gaping wound. (…) I wanted to make a film of catharsis.”

Despite the trial, despite the conviction of Marc Dutroux, despite a commission of inquiry, many Belgians have the feeling of an unresolved case in Belgium. Two theses continue to clash: that of isolated pedophiles and that of a larger network. “Today it’s been thirty years. There are still people who are speaking out to ask for the case to be reopened. If this film, whatever people think of it, can help change things, I would be very happy.”

> “The Maldoror File” with Anthony Bajon, Alba Gaïa Bellugi, Sergi Lopez, Laurent Lucas and Béatrice Dalle will be released on the big screen on January 15, 2025.