Adolf Daens was a Belgian Catholic priest and politician who dedicated his life to the struggle to improve working conditions in the factories of the late 19th century. As history has taught us that the Catholic Church has spent most of its time on the side of the powerful and privileged, harassing those it should nominally protect and fight for their rights, it should not be surprising that this righteous priest was expelled from the church. Only more than a hundred years after his death at the beginning of the 20th century, the Belgian archdiocese rehabilitated Daens and admitted that he was on the right side in his time and they were on the wrong side, but as is often the case with the Catholic Church – the late Mark on Kosovo is coming.
It was this activist biographical historical drama by Stijn Coninx that was nominated for an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, and Jan Decleir, the actor who portrayed Daens, was nominated for European Actor of the Year. The year is 1890, and a Flemish priest returns to his hometown, Aalst, after having a previous quarrel with his superior bishop in Ghent. Even after returning home, where he decided to stay temporarily with his brother Pieter, who publishes the local newspaper, he cannot believe that what he sees is possible. The living conditions there are horrible, people are literally dying of hunger on the street. Children also work in textile factories in inhumane conditions and for the church, and people are exploited in the most terrible possible way, to whom local entrepreneurs pay wages that are barely enough to eat.
Everything there looks exactly as described by Karl Marx in the books of the 19th century European factory, and the rich industrialists are so greedy that they have just decided to fire all the men and hire women and children in their place because they have to pay them less. Almost every day, children die in these horrific jobs, but no one pays attention to it. The just and empathetic Daens cannot stand it and is aware that something must be done and changed, but the church firmly stands by the industrialists. When he realizes that he cannot achieve anything through the church, Daens will decide to become politically active and will run as a worker’s representative with the support of the socialists.
Only this will further anger the ruling, ironically, Catholic party whose representatives in parliament are the same exploiters and which is clearly supported by the Catholic party. The pressure of the church on Daens to end his political struggle and stop making waves will increase, even the pope will give him an ultimatum that he can choose whether to be a priest or a politician, but he will not stop in the fight for the rights of oppressed and disenfranchised workers. Although Coninx somewhat romanticized the struggle for workers’ rights, “Daens” was a film that depicts that time in a stunning and shocking way. In order to further contextualize the situation, it should be understood that Belgium was then ruled by the infamous King Leopold II, who was the owner of the Congo and during whose time one of the most terrible genocides in the history of mankind was committed there, so it should not be surprising that such a guy did not bother much about the fate of his people. subjects.
The situation is all the more complex because practically all industrialists and the bourgeoisie are Walloons and speak French, while the workers and other lower classes are Flemish. And that bourgeoisie, on the unfortunates who fall under the machines and rape their women and do not get too excited when their children die under the heavy machines, further humiliate them and claim in the parliament and when inspections come to the factories, that they themselves are to blame for their situation because they are all drunkards and bums, respectively, who don’t deserve better. “Daens” was a quality and interesting film, a biography of a great and worthy man, a priest who decided to be on the right side of history. To a man who refused to be a conformist and decided to risk his safety to fight for the weaker, what in theory every priest should do, but unfortunately we don’t see that movie that often.
