Fögi Is a Bastard [Fögi Est un Salaud] *** (1998, Frédéric Andrau, Vincent Branchet, Urs Peter Halter, Jean-Pierre von Dach) – Classic Movie Review 13,787

Vincent Branchet stars as teenaged Beni, who becomes dangerously obsessed with Fögi (Frédéric Andrau), the narcissistic lead singer of a struggling rock band, in the 1998 French/ Swiss drama film Fögi Is a Bastard [Fögi Est un Salaud].

Director Marcel Gisler’s 1998 French/ Swiss drama film Fögi Is a Bastard [Fögi Est un Salaud] is written by by Marcel Gisler and Marcel Gisler, based on the novel De Fögi Isch en Souhund by Martin Frank. It is set in early 1970s, Zürich, Switzerland, and filmed there, in a spectacularly grungy style to suit the alienating, dystopian material.

Vincent Branchet stars as teenaged Beni, who becomes enamoured with, and then dangerously obsessed with, Fögi Müller (Frédéric Andrau), the older, narcissistic lead singer of a struggling rock band called The Minks. Beni attends a Minks concert, is captivated with what he perceives as the glamour of rock music, and contrives to meet Fögi.

The film gives out mixed messages. Is it saying rock and roll corrupts? What is it saying? But one thing is clear. Fögi doesn’t ensnare the boy at all. Beni writes a love letter to him, and Fögi calls him up. The boy walks out on his useless mom and gets himself taken on as the band’s roadie.

Beni allows Fögi, actually encourages him, to seduce him. He doesn’t take any seducing, he just takes his clothes off and gets into bed with him.

The enraptured Beni allows himself to be captivated and then captured, though technically the door is always open to leave, and when Fögi kicks him out, he simply won’t go. He follows Fögi body and soul, including into sex and drugs, and rock-and-roll, and lots of alcohol. They become lovers, but Fögi is a bastard to him, treating him appallingly, shockingly, even treating him like a dog, with Beni always coming back for more. Beni wants to have Fögi all to himself, all the time and always, and only exists to be with him. Imagine his shock and horror when he finds Fögi in bed with band member Töbe (Urs Peter Halter). Beni keeps telling Fögi he loves him, digging a deeper hole in their relationship, and Fögi occasionally tells the boy he loves him back. He partly means it, maybe, and partly just says it to shut the boy up.

Things are never so bad that they can’t get worse, apparently. Beni ends up prostituting himself to pay for Fögi’s drug habit, perhaps, you coukd say, in the process destroying his youth and innocence. But, young as he was, did he even have these in the first place? Somehow Beni takes charge and is in control of Fögi, though not of the ever-collapsing situation.

Fögi Is a Bastard is a nihilistic, particularly harsh, take-no-prisoners S&M-type watch, like watching a train wreck and a parallel car crash. It has a horrible end of days feel. Frédéric Andrau as Fögi and Vincent Branchet as Beni both go to it with a will and a passion, and commendable conviction, under difficult circumstances. Like Fögi, the film may attract but it will not make many friends. Yet it is quite mesmerising as a road to ruin story, and it does bring back the flavour of the rock-and-roll years of the early 1970s.

It’s lucky that it’s set in such a long-ago past, and now a film of a long-ago past, so we can perhaps feel a bit more comfortable watching it. But it still feels agonisingly contemporary, with its thematic shades of The Servant, though not modern, as the film-making style is Seventies. It’s the idea that it is so ‘real’ seeming that makes it so effective and disturbing. Two essentially probably decent young men on a path to destruction. Needless to say, this isn’t a happy story. It’s gruelling, and there is no happy ending either. Obsessive love is always punished in the movies. It’s a Fatal Attraction. In real life, could it have a happy ending? That’s a different story.

The film was shown in 1998 at the Locarno Film Festival and the Toronto International Film Festival, and released in France on April 28, 1998.

Cast: Frédéric Andrau as Fögi, Vincent Branchet as Beni Müller, Urs Peter Halter as Töbe, Jean-Pierre von Dach as Wäde.

Swiss film director and screenwriter Marcel Gisler (born 18 March 1960) also made Rosie (2013), Electroboy (2014) and Mario (2018).

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,787

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