Interview in Humo ed. May 30,2006
If she could, she'd love to be princess Paola again
HUMO why did the palace ask you to make a movie on queen Paola? Did her negative image in Flanders need to get a positive twist?
JAN BECAUS (58) The program has not been made on the palace's request. We've got good archive footage on queen Fabiola for a worst case scenario - if she should come to pass. On queen Paola we've got a lot of images, but not one bit of usefull sound material. So director in chief Leo Hellemans ordered me to shoot a film in which we can hear her talk.
In an audience last year I asked her for an interview. She was willing to do it, but her advisors (haar entourage) didn't and so we had to start searching for an alternative. In the end we asked Paola to travel to Venice with 3 friends for the Biennale. The queen was enthusiastic about it "But", she said, "when I go to Venice I want to be able to talk about all kind of things and not just art." Those friends are Marina Emo, a friend from her youth with whom she only speaks Italian; Marianna Freddi, a flamboyant liberal lady that she talks French with - it was through her that she met Albert in Rome at the end of the 50s; and Mirjam Van Beusekom, a Dutch woman she met in Spa when she took a language course there. She talks Dutch to her.
HUMO Will we get to know more from this interview than from the legendary interview Lutgard Simoens had with queen Fabiola, and where the most interesting bit was that king Boudewijn was fond of sorbet?
BECAUS Luckily we will, although of course the ladies prepared what they would talk about and what not. You can sense they most of all rehearsed the parts in Dutch: it's the language Paola feels least comfortable in. It's the language in which she's most stressed out.
Paola realizes that, because of her weak knowledge of Dutch, she has an image problem in Flanders. Once she spoke a bit of Dutch in a new years speech that was aired on TV, and she still has horrors thinking back on it: the Dutch was just awful. This film was a chance to step out like she's never done before. And most of all: to show people how she thinks and feels.
HUMO You know Paola personally. She's, as you say,not a cold woman with a disdain for everything that goes on outside the circles of the high aristocracy.
BECAUS Paola is timid, nearly freightful. In public she doesn't know very well how to hold herself. When she came to view the first version of the film she literally said "I'm scared". in the film she also tells that she cramped when she suddenly became queen in 1993.
Albert was incertain as well at the time, but by now he's accepted for a 100 % by the political scene. He'll blindly sign what his ministers agree. If they give him his own abdication tomorrow, he'll dutyfully sign it (laughs).
Crownprince Filip is more like his mother. He's also got something cramped about him.
HUMO Does Paola talk about the succession?
BECAUS She talks about her children and grandchildren, but she doesn't discuss the functions of the crownprince or prince Laurent. We know they both had an unhappy childhood at boarding school, when Albert and Paola went through a turbulant phase in the 70s.
HUMO Is the name Delphine mentioned?
BECAUS No. Once, in a restaurant, there was a short chat about "private problems". That painful chapter has been closed completely for Paola.
She now talks about Albert with a lot of warmth and sympathy. You feel very well that the troubles have been sorted out. The lion has been tamed. Albert had a few serious operations and has to take things easier now. Paola stands a bit higher in the private hierarchy now. Like in a lot of homes where the husband lost his wild hairs and returned peacefully to the wife and mother.
HUMO But the wife and mother also took a lot of liberties in her younger years.
BECAUS Oh well, there are so many stories about that, but what is true? As a prince, Albert travelled the world for 33 years on economic missions. He got to know the wild life there, far away from the strict protocol. I heard stories that someone had to be put outside his bedroom door at night to be sure he would arrive at the meeting the next morning. I would be surprised if Paola behaved differently in those years.
HUMO What's true about the rumor that Albert stays king because Paola so dearly wants to be the queen?
BECAUS I highly doubt it. For the constitution Paola doesn't even exist. I think that if she'd have the choice, she'd love to go back to her hidden life as a princess. She became queen overnight, she was forced into the job. She felt hopeless, who could she turn to for advice?
HUMO Her sister in law, queen Fabiola?
BECAUS Are those two on speaking terms then? We gave Paola the DVD on queen Fabiola. After she'd seen her own film, she said "Well this is of a totally different order". I concluded from that that she was very satisfied with the result (laughs).
HUMO Is it true you have been teaching her Dutch?
BECAUS After the shooting in Venice, the queen asked me to, yes. In the meantime I've been to the palace about 5 times. I do it for free, because I can't garantee a result. The queen is nearly 69 and she doesn't really have a skill for languages, but she's very stubborn about wanting to learn Dutch, and that deserves some admiration. I mean that.
HUMO What kind of method do you use "Aap, noot, mies"?
BECAUS I tought Dutch and English for 11 years: I know how to do it. I started of a little as a traditional teacher: with newspaper clippings, but she quickly made it clear that she didn't like that way of working. She really wanted to practice her conversation skills in Dutch, with someone who dares to correct her mistakes.
HUMO What do you talk about with her?
BECAUS She hasn't told me a single palace secret yet (laughs). We watch newsitems together and then we talk about it. That works a lot better for her than a classical teaching lesson.
HUMO Are you a monarchist?
BECAUS The monarchy is a relict from the Middle Ages. As an intelligent person you can't agree with this form of government. I agree with Willy Claes who says that he's a monarchist for as long as our country exists. The day Belgium doesn't exist anymore, I'll become a republican.
HUMO So it's not your biggest ambition to have your own royalty show?
BECAUS Not at all. 'Royalty' from VTM isn't bad in it's genre, although the palace doesn't always agree. Laurent is even mad with them: "VTM is sh*t" I heard him say once. The queen doesn't watch that kind of programs either she says, she rather wtaches the news, on RTL.
Jan Lippens & Jan Anthonissen
