Bockie Bomb: Inside the Residential Care Facility Experience

When Bockie de Repper wanted to respectfully open the debate about old age with his new documentary series, he was quickly caught by CM president Luc Van Gorp. He was in one newspaper interview about a “mountain of meat” that is “taken to the care of the elderly”. Even Bockie de Repper wouldn’t have dared to put it in such a graphic way. He lived as a resident in a residential care facility for thirty days. Bockie Bomb there is a reflection on this and in the second episode it is not entirely optimistic either. “What’s the most intense thing you’ve ever seen?” asked his good friend Élodie Ouédraogo. “Understanding that there is nothing to gain from life. In the end it will end badly,” he replied without hesitation. Crowd!

Bockie Bomb However, he does his best to make everything look nice. Wzc De Vaere in Rumst is a home of rest from the books: a castle surrounded by greenery and equipped with a summer bar and a farm with goats. Jonas Van Boxstael, as Bockie is actually called, sees himself getting old for thirty days. With enthusiasm he almost mocks the director when he signs in. “Are you going to kiss me for starters? A helping hand is good,” she gives him a friendly, but firm reply.

The tone is set. In order for him to become popular in the WZC, Bockie must first temper his enthusiasm. But if there’s one thing Bockie doesn’t like to do, it’s that. He entertains the room of his house, hitting the Rummikubthree girls’ nights and calling the restaurant together for an ethical issue that only he cares about: do they think it’s okay for him to dye his beard gray and put wrinkles on his face? As if there was a vigilante brigade waiting in the retirement home that would offend a gray variant of ‘blackface’.

He must seek social consciousness closer to himself. “I think one should eat quietly. You can open your mouth, but don’t sit around chatting all the time”, he is told when he tries to joke and joke a little too clearly with his table mates. Bind it, Bockie!

It’s painful, but above all funny: a light way to look behind the walls of a scary institution. The worst side is highlighted by fellow resident Roger Lybaert, who has often presented himself in the media as the conscience of elderly care. “There’s plenty of company here, but occasionally you’re lonely,” he says. With him – he is now dead – you didn’t have to get rid of “children’s games”. Bockie, who claims to have a holy fear of death, here confronts his true fear: loneliness. A way of life without people being in danger. There is nothing to gain from that.