David Dewaele, Un Seignor Misérable

David Dewaele died on February 27 following a heart attack at the Flanders’ town of Harzebrouck, he was only 37. The actor had been missing for three weeks and no one could know his whereabouts and we informed his death only last week. David Dewaele has been the alter ego of Bruno Dumont, he was a non-professional actor and he participated in the last films by the French director. They introduced each other during the shooting of Flanders in 2006 where Dewaele had a small part. Their collaboration continued in Hadewijch (2009) where he played the supporting role of David. His first and only lead role was in the previous film by Bruno Dumont, Hors Satan (Outside Satan, 2011) where he played the Guy. Initially Dewaele didn’t want to do that part and asked Dumont if he was crazy.

“Un Seigneur” was the first word that Bruno Dumont thought as he was informed about Dewaele’s death. The director said: “We were from the same region, the same countryside, near Calais, Hazebrouck, Wissant, but not from the same environment. He was a proletarians’ child, beaten from his childhood, raised by a dear grandmother, he became a rogue, a little thief, often prisoned, always at the social welfare, buffeting between stories of bistros and the conversion to Islam, his troubles with drugs and alcohol.  A “miserable” in the true sense as Hugo intended. The word that comes to me: a sir, violent, umbrageous but inhabited by a sensibility outside the norms.”