Koen was soon convicted, removed from the bench and plunged into a financial and emotional depression that saw him lose his house and attempt suicide. Always by his side was his wife, Magda, the woman who felt responsible for getting him into this mess.

Because it was Magda who asked Koen five years earlier to explore sexual boundaries with her and visit an SM club. Sado-Masochism between consenting adults is not illegal, but, when the couple’s private life unexpectedly became public, the prosecuting attorney came calling.

Sex, politics, revenge and secrets combine to make this story rich for the telling. Flemish director Erik Lamens is making his feature film debut this week with SM Rechter (or SM Judge). “I thought for a long time about doing it, but it was hard to find the right angle,” Lamens says. “It’s a dangerous project, and I couldn’t find the right perspective.”

He might never have found it had the former judge himself not called Lamens up. The night before they met, Koen’s appeal had been dismissed by the European Court of Human Rights, and  Lamens had decide to abandon the project. But Koen convinced him otherwise. “It was a personal angle that I needed,” says Lamens. “What we saw in the newspapers and on television 12 years ago was from the outside, and I wanted to go to the inside.”

Back when the story broke, Magda took a backseat to all the attention her husband was getting. He gave the interviews, she kept quiet. In SM Rechter, Lamens puts the focus more on her. “Everything started with a crisis in the marriage. Because of her depression, they were on the edge of divorce, and at that moment, she told him something that she had been hiding for 30 years. And he said, ‘if that can help you, let’s try it’.”

Lamens sees this as the heart of the story. “It touched me on a personal level – that the state interfered with love.”

The film is destined for controversy, just like the court case it is based on. “I heard on TV the other day that this is ‘the most controversial film of the year’, but I didn’t make it to be controversial,” says Lamens. “I just wanted to show people what they don’t already know – why a woman asks this after 15 years of marriage, and why he says yes.”

But perhaps the most unsettling for audiences is the concept of Sado-Masochism itself. The film does not shy away from illustrating the couple’s practices, from simple early bondage and whipping to hardcore experiences little known outside the SM community. “I wanted to give people a frame of reference because there is so much about SM that I myself didn’t know,” says Lamens. “Most people are not familiar with that kind of sexuality.”

Still, the question isn’t whether audiences approve of SM but whether private sexual practices have anything do to with a magistrate’s ability to perform his job. Lamens is clear about what he thinks: “Real criminals are released through errors, but consenting adults who are not hurting anybody are prosecuted. The system spent a lot of time and money on this one person when there are a lot of cases that have not received the attention they needed.”

www.smrechterthemovie.be

Review SM Rechter

After 15 years of marriage, Koen and Magda are in crisis. She is in a deep depression, neglecting their daughter and herself. Finally she has a full-blown nervous breakdown that puts her in hospital.

When she comes home, Koen asks Magda what he can do for her. “I’ll do anything,” he says. “Anything?” she responds. “Yes, anything.”

So Magda confesses a secret she has been keeping for 30 years. She has masochistic fantasies, and she wants her husband to inflict pain on her. Koen is confused and nervous, but, more than that, he is in love with his wife.

The couple visit an SM club and begin on a journey of physical and sexual discovery. Magda feels a great sense of relief, followed by the kind of happiness she never knew existed.

Koen (Gene Bervoets) is a judge in Mechelen, and when he explains to his boss and good friend what he and Magda (Veerle Dobbelaere – excellent) are embarking upon, his boss is immediately wary. But what could it hurt? says Koen. “Private is private”.

And that is the question at the heart of SM Rechter (SM Judge), the feature film debut from Flemish director Erik Lamens. When the sex lives of Koen and Magda accidentally become public, and a prosecutor (who, it is suggested, has it in for Koen) investigates, the family is thrown into the spotlight of public debate on privacy and the law.

The movie does a commendable job opening up its cans of worms, particularly towards the end, when confiscated videos are shown to the court of just how far the couple’s SM practice has progressed over five years. The question begins to form: Do you want a sadist handing out punishments to the citizens of your community?

This is actually an area the film fails to address: never do we find out if Koen has become a sadist or if he is simply playing a role for the happiness of his wife. Because of this, the film never gives itself the chance to address his ability to separate his private feelings and public performance as a magistrate.

Despite very good performances all around, SM Rechter technically never reaches a level above TV drama. But its psychological and emotional levels deliver from beginning to end. LB