Charles Dekeukeleire

Charles Dekeukeleire (27 February 1905 - 2 June 1971) was a Belgian film director. He pioneered modern Belgian film with Henri Storck. He was inspired by French avant-garde cinema, particularly the works of Germaine Dulac.

Biography

Dekeukeleire was born in Ixelles and died in Werchter. For his first film, Combat de Boxe, produced in 1927, Dekeukeleire staged a boxing match in his room based on a poem by Paul Werrie. Dekeukeleire recruited two professional boxers, one of which was the Belgian lightweight boxing champion. The abrupt changes of scale, the use of overprinting, and the use of very short shots alternating between the spectators and the fighters made this film unusually complex for the Twenties.

He returned to this idea the following year with his masterpiece, Impatience, which is close to futurism. When it premiered, Charles Dekeukeleire stated that the gaze of the spectators must adapt, to let itself slip along with the film to feel the fragments of various lengths. The desire for physical contact with the machine is at the base of this film. In this drama with four characters (the Mountain, the abstract Motorbike, the Woman and the Blocks), the mechanical body, that of the Motorbike is strongly associated with the female body, first clothed and then naked with leather. Dekeukeleire exchanges parts between the two characters, resulting in a suggestive motorbike-woman/woman-motorbike. These two characters, the Motorbike and the Woman, then enter into interaction...
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