Journey of Dogme 95-"Vow of Chastity".

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Dogme Brotherhood

 

Paris, March 1995. The film world is gathered at the Le cinéma vers son deuxième siècle symposium to celebrate the first century of cinema and ponder its uncertain fate. Invited to discuss the possible future of cinema, Danish director Lars von Trier, already widely known for a series of challenging (and sometimes controversial) feature films, proposes a practical way forward. He presents a manifesto, accompanied by a series of rules aiming to free artists from the shackles of mega budgets and visual excess, a kind of cinematic regression therapy that he - and co-conspirator Thomas Vinterberg - hope will change the face of cinema. Throwing stacks of red flyers into the enthusiastic and bewildered audience, They were later joined by fellow Danish directors Kristian Levring and Soren Kragh-Jacobsen, forming the Dogme 95 Collective or the Dogme Brethren. Dogme is the Danish word for dogma. Dogme 95 was the word made flesh: The Vow of Chastity its Commandments.

 "Vow of Chastity",these were rules to create filmmaking based on the traditional values of story, acting and theme, and excluding the use of elaborate special effects or technology.The genre gained international appeal partly because of its accessibility. It sparked an interest in unknown filmmakers by suggesting that one can make a recognised film of a quality to gain recognition, without being dependent on commissions or huge Hollywood budgets. The directors used European government subsidies and television station funding instead. The movement has been criticised for being an attempt to gain media attention. Dogme was initiated to cause a stir and to make filmmakers and audiences re-think the art, effect and essence of filmmaking.

Beginnings: From Festen to The Idiots

Thomas Vinterberg's Festen (The Celebration, 1998)

Despite its clear aesthetic influence on Lars von Trier's 1996 feature Breaking the Waves, the first certified Dogme film was Thomas Vinterberg's Festen (The Celebration, 1998), which traced a family torn apart by suicide and a startling revelation. Vinterberg's film won the Jury Prize at the 1998 Cannes Film Festival, and a whole slate of awards from film critics and festival audiences across the world.

Before the title sequence the Dogme manifesto certificate is showed with the number of the film. Central to the plot is the 60^th birthday party of Helge, the father of four children. The eldest son Christian reveals the dark secrets of his childhood to the assembled guests. With natural lighting, sound and hand-held video camera Festen creates disorientating images as disturbing as the content of the story. As the film is shot with a digital video camera and blown up to 35 mm, the material is very grainy on the big screen of a cinema theatre (on Video this graininess is invisible). The aesthetic of the movie resembles the aesthetic of the French New Wave, as hand-held camera equipment was used extensively. Vinterberg sees the vow of chastity as liberation from technical considerations and the limitations as inspiration. But also the collective aspect appeals to him.

Also premiering at Cannes in 1998 was Lars von Trier's first foray into Dogme, Idioterne (The Idiots). Although markedly less successful than Vinterberg's film, Idioterne gained noteriety around the world for its frank expressions of sexuality and crude treatment of intellectual disability.A group of young people, who live in a large house, pretend in the public to be idiots. They try to find their 'inner idiot'. By accident Karen gets involved in this group. In the end it turns out that one of them really had the disease the others were pretending and the group falls apart. Some serious questions about society's attitude to the disabled arise when watching the movie. The funny thing is the reactions to the idiots rather than the idiots themselves. The film is very provocative because of its sensitive subject. The movie seems to break with the Dogme rules, as film music appears, but von Trier reveals in an interview that the source of the music - the harmonica player - was located behind the camera while shooting. So the sound is always recorded with the image, however tricky this is to achieve.

The third film of the Dogme movement came the following year with Danish cohort Søren Kragh-Jacobsen's Mifunes sidste sang (Mifune's Last Song, 1999), in which a father's death requires his son to return to the small Danish island of his childhood and care for his intellectually disabled brother. A hit at festivals and award ceremonies worldwide, Mifunes sidste sang remains one of Denmark's most successful box office exports.

Dogme Gains An International Audience

The success of Festen and Mifune, and the notoriety of Idioterne, ensured that Dogme had gained a worldwide audience. In 1999, the movement spread to France (with Jean-Marc Barr's Lovers), the USA (Harmony Korine's Julien Donkey-Boy), Korea (Daniel H. Byun's Interview) and Argentina (Jose Luis Marques' F*ckland), ensuring that Dogme 95 had become a worldwide phenomenon. Dragging cinema into the twenty-first century, latter Dogme highlights included Lone Scherfig's Italiensk for begyndere (Italian for Beginners, 2000) and Susanne Bier's Elsker dig for evigt (Open Hearts, 2002).

Futures: After Dogme 95

In the original Dogme 95 manifesto, Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg referred to the initial promise of the French Nouvelle Vague, claiming that 'the goal was correct but the means were not! The new wave proved to be a ripple that washed ashore and turned to muck.' Of course, over a decade later, the same has been said of Dogme 95. Yet, the legacy of Dogme 95 is much the same as every other 'new wave' before and since; once the concrete ideas have become diluted, the strict rules relaxed and the main protagonists have moved on, we are left with only the films and their influence on future generations of filmmakers. And, for better or worse, Dogme 95 has proved to be nothing if not influential.

The Dogme movement was officially announced on March 22, 1995 at Le Cinéma Vers Son Deuxième Siècle in Paris where the cinema world's elite gathered to celebrate the first century of motion pictures and contemplate the uncertain future of commercial cinema. The story goes that Lars von Trier was supposed to speak about the future of film but instead he began showering the alarmed audience with red pamphlets announcing his Dogme 95 movement. Since then 108 films have been consider "Dogme" worthy, with the first 31 receiving certificates of approval. Apparently in June, 2002 both creators declared that the Dogme95 movement was officially dead because it was starting to become a genre, which was never the intention. Although you can still fill out a form and send it to someone somewhere and be added to the list of Dogme95 films, the truest of Dogme95 films are the first 31 certified.

It's hard to measure the impact of Dogme precisely. Many films that might look as if they've been influenced by what you might call the Dogme style are actually simply reflecting a lack of budgetary means. But the look did go mainstream and can be seen in music videos and advertising, most famously in one batch of ads for Mentos breath fresheners. Most of all, the widely varied forms of creativity displayed by the first round of Dogme directors using exactly the same means is definitely an encouragement to any rookie filmmaker with a new DV camera in hand.


Learn more about Dogme 95...
Film movement- French New Way and Dogme 95
Dogme Uncut,Lars von Trier, Thomas Vinterberg, and the Gang That Took on Hollywood
Danish Dogmas: Purity and Provocation: Dogma ’95 edited by Mette Hjort and Scott MacKenzie