2023-12-11 06:34:49

La Une will broadcast a documentary this Friday which should make noise. “Exclusive”, “Unique”,… because for the first time, in “Philippe. A year with the King of the Belgians”, the king expresses himself, confides like never one of his predecessors had done. This documentary, filmed on the occasion of the 10 years of reign of King Philippe, is a sort of immersion into the professional life of the sovereign during his activities, meetings, travels in Belgium or abroad.

Exceptional interviews

Independent director and producer Nicolas Delvaulx, already author of several documentaries on the royal family – including a recent one “Paola garden side” -, followed the king for more than a year, in 2022-2023.

In this documentary, we discover the daily life of the sovereign, the meetings with his teams at the Palace of Brussels or in Laeken, the meetings with flood victims with Prime Minister Alexander De Croo, his travels or state visits (Greece, DRC or Guyana for the launch of an Ariane rocket). Also behind the scenes never seen before of the visit to the Laeken Palace of Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenski but also behind the scenes of the filming of the famous clip “Devil time” with the Red Devils. The director and his team had access to everything until the festivities of July 21 this year.

Objective: answer a series of questions. Who is the king? What is its exact role? What does he actually do? What is it just for? Who is the man behind the feature?

But the great novelty of this film is that the king speaks. No major interviews in front of the camera – the Palace always refuses to do so. But over the months, King Philippe granted the director around ten 1h30 interviews, in French and Dutch, recorded on a mobile phone. The king never confided in this way. Nothing better than one’s own testimony to discover it more perfectly.

King Philippe evokes his function there, “not a job” he said, “but a vocation, relationships”a relationship “like a wedding” with a country and its fellow citizens. The notion of “mission to serve people” comes back regularly.

Philippe also evokes his ancestors and predecessors, particularly King Baudouin who had a strong impact and influence on him. He once once more pays homage to his sensitive, human side. Tribute also to his wife Queen Mathilde and to his family, his children who increasingly accompany him in some of his official activities.

A certain solitude of power

But the king goes beyond the simple description of his daily movements to also express his feelings, his feelings. We thus feel the desire to listen, to help, to be up to the task, and therefore to serve, “always reinventing yourself […] be inspiring”.

Philippe also depicts a certain solitude of the function to which he says he has become accustomed over the years, the distance, the reserve which exists while he remains king 24 hours a day. The discovery of his role as heir and future king from the age of 5-6, in people’s eyes and comments.

Philippe also looks back on his youth, his “training”: “I realized that life was not easy very early in my life… And the way people look at me is not easy. People who judge… At school. It’s hard… I was different, I “was a little different. Because of my position, yes, it wasn’t easy. But I am the first in the history of the monarchy to have gone to a normal school, etc. The generation before, everything was a bit tailor-made, with teachers who came to the house. I haven’t really experienced that… You have to fight.” And to continue: “I looked a lot, I observed, but I wasn’t very sociable. At the time. Not open. It happened much later. In fact I was, in quotes, at peace with it the day I became king. It hasn’t even been ten years, sorry […]. I’m not the type to rebel, I didn’t do that, I rather internalized it. Instead, I tried to see how to build my own world. I was given capital; I didn’t exactly say that I was going to reject that. I said with that, what am I going to do?”

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