Nosferatu. Revista de cine (Donostia Kultura)

Título: Abstracts

Autor/es: Nosferatu

Citar como: Nosferatu (2002). Abstracts. Nosferatu. Revista de cine. (39):90-92.

Documento descargado de: http://hdl.handle.net/10251/41275

Copyright: Reserva de todos los derechos (NO CC)

La digitalización de este artículo se enmarca dentro del proyecto "Estudio y análisis para el desarrollo de una red de conocimiento sobre estudios fílmicos a través de plataformas web 2.0", financiado por el Plan Nacional de I+D+i del Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad del Gobierno de España (código HAR2010-18648), con el apoyo de Biblioteca y Documentación Científica y del Área de Sistemas de Información y Comunicaciones (ASIC) del Vicerrectorado de las Tecnologías de la Información y de las Comunicaciones de la Universitat Politècnica de València.

Entidades colaboradoras:

LESS DOGMA THAN ONE WOULD CARETO from an aesthetic point of view. They also show the BE LlEVE strong visual influence in their making of Russian Nuria Vida/ director Andrei Tarkovski.

The Dogma movement was bom at the 1998 Cmmes Festival with the screening of Festen (Thomas BREAKING TV, SHOOTING IN THE DARK Vinterberg) and Idioterne (Lars von Trier). These two Quim Casas directors had drawn up a document in 1995 known as the "Dogma 95 Manifesto" (to which Soren Kragh­ Lars von Trier's relationship with te levision, while not Jacobsen and Kristian Levring were later to add their particularly productive, is highly interesting. His first names), in which they defended a tmth-revealing experience dates back to \987, when he took another look cinema, with no tricks, no special or "cosmetic" e ffects, at the tragedy of Euripides in the shape of Medell, made filmed with a handheld camera, fa r removed from genre fo r television and based 011 a screenplay signed by movie conventions, and shot on locati on. Dogma fi lms Dreyer (together with Prebeu Thomsen) but which the are generally choral fi lms placing grealer importance on latter was unable to film. Von Trier te lis lhe tale of Medea the relationships (almost always problematic) between - whom, after being abandoned by Jason, killed her two the members of this human group (always from the children - with no concessions, underl i11 ing with quasi­ more-or-less middle classes, never marginal) than on cruelty the most tragic aspects, and particularly the death subjects like sex and lave which, while present, don'! of her children. His second work for television, Riget generally play a leading part. The "Dogma Certificate" (also know by its English title, The Kingdom), is a series has been earned to date by 25 films of widely varying comprising two parts, made in \994 and 1997. The nationali ties, including France, Argentina, Korea, ltaly, Kingdom is, in fact, a ghost story set in a big Danish Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, the USA and hospital standing on the mins of an ancient cemetery. even Spain. The Dogma phenomenon has yet lo This series reflects a certain amount of influence from demonstrate the extent of ils influence: whether it will and similarities with another two series likewise directed serve as the foundations for a revolution in the world of by famous filmmakers: 1\vin Pcllks, by David Lynch, and cinema or whether it will simply fade away into the Homicide, by Barry Levinson. lt moreover served to hi story of film as just another movement. bring von Trier closer to a bigger audiencc.

I N PRIVATE: A PORTRAIT OF T H E DAN ISH THE E L E M ENT OF C RIME ARTIST Jesús Angula Carlos San/amarina Lars von Trier launched his commercial fil mography with Aping the game proposed by Lars von Trier in E uropa, The E leruent of Crime, a film defying classification with the author sets out on a step-by-step itinerary aimed al which he initiated bis trilogy on Europe, completed wilh offering a second person account of the fihnmaker's Epidemic and Europa. Its sophisticated production, personal and péofessional career. Thus begins a which obeyed the orig inal storyboard to the letter, conspiratorial itinerary tinged with the light of the free unfolds in a claustrophobic atmosphere, wi th disturbing education received by Lars von Trier as a child , showing sets and a highly unusual use of colour. Behind this his mother's intluence in the gestation of his artistic techn ical scaffolding is a process of personality transfer, vocation, or his fi rst works as a director. The biographical during which policeman Fisher finally vampirizes the very low-down moreover takes an in-depth look at the two criminal he has lo unmask, while von Trier proceeds with trilogies made by the filmmaker in lhe 80s and 90s, while a complicated retlection 011 the hypnotic power of placing emphasis on the iutluences that can be detected cinema. in his work or, from another point of view, the part played by the Danish director in creating the "Dogma 95 Manifeslo". The itincrary comes to an end with a last EPIDEMIC note on the work currently in the making by von Trier. Angel Sala

Lars von Trier 's second feature, Epidemic, a deliberate LARS VON TRJER AND HIS SHORT F ILMS exercise in denying the manneri sm of his first work, The Zigor Etxebeste E lcmcnt of C r ime, is likewise a movie fa r removed from narrative conventiona lism, whic h encouragcs a Becoming a filmmakcr was young Lars von Trier's .fantastique reflecti on on artisti c creation a nd employs drcam 011 attempting lo enter the Danish Fi lm School fo r gentle irony regarding the generic aspect of cinema. the fi rst time at the age o f 17. Despite initial rejection Epidemic is therefore closer to the director's latest from thc institution, he decided lo go ahead and makc stage than first impressions would seem to imply, fil ms by himself. He made his earliest movics with his although its enthusiastic approach a llCI a certain mother's super-8 mm camera, although his first real naivcty in the elements comprising it s thcsis save it works are Orchidégartnere11 ( 1977) and Menthe-la from the irritating self-sati sfa ction of films like ldioterne bienheureuse ( 1979). Hi s second artcmpt at entering o Dllnccr in the Dark, the pretentiousness of which film school was a succcss. He fil med three more shorts has been intlated by those who have mistakenl y read bctwecn 1979 and 1982 with the help of his usual them as radical and theoreticall y aggressive works, coll aborators at thal time, lhe c inemalographer Tom when they are in fact part of the immense parodie Elling and thc editor Thomas Gislaso11. Two of those catalogue put together by a kamikaze author capable of works served ns stepping-stones on the way lo his first shooting himself down in flames in arder to achieve a featme fi lm , Forbrydelsens element (1984). Thcse two provocati ve and defi nitively destruc tive e ffect around movies, Nocturne and Befriclscsbillcdcr, are analysed the very concept a11d conception of tracli tional c inema.

NOSFERATU 391liJ···· EUROPA does respect some of the precepts to be found in the Antonio ll'einrichter "Vote of Chastity" taken by Dogma movies, certain aspccts (the melodrama, the use of a computer to colour Von Trier brings his "Europa Trilogy" to a close with a certain shots, etc.) de!initively deny BrealDANCER IN THE DARK marked a radical about-turn in the way von Trier makes Carlos Losilla cinema, ending in the "simplicity" of Dogma. Dancer in tbc Dark is a basic film on Lars von Trier's lilmography for a number of reasons. In the fi rst IDIOTERNE place, because it constitutes th e peak of hi s strange Antonio José Navarro and unusual relationshi p wi th the Dogma movement, of which he has been an active though ambiguous The storyline of ldioteme is set around a gronp of and questioning membcr in hi s own productions as a alleged middle-elass non-conformists whom, in an act o[ filmmaker. In the second place, because it bases th e hypothetica l rebell ion again st upper- cla ss hypocri sy, overcoming of these links on a drasti c gesture of decide to act as if they were mentally handicappecl, defiance: the choice of affectation in its purest of attacking the most basic pillars of society, reason and states, i.e., mu sical melodrama. And th irdly, because log ic. Tdioterne is a sombre film, totally devoid of the result permits us to establish it s author wi th in th e humour, which moves in the terrain of vi scera l emotion panorama of today's cinema, while lead ing us to ancl, as an exponent of the Dogma system, su ffers from doubt much of what his im ages "seem" to sa y. implicit, encnmbering moralism (though not morality). Von Trier's admitted objecti ve was to make a film with absolutely nothing in common wi th Star Wars, THE i\IYSTERY OF THE DARK LIGHT although he most ccrtainly fai led to reach the hei ghts of Angel Femández Santos carlier precedents with which Dogma di rectors have a great dca l in common (such as the French Nouvelle Reactions to the screening of Danccr in thc Dar!< at the Vague or the British Free Cinema). The antisocial Cannes Festi val in 2000 varied between total rejection rebe llion of ldioterne is lacking in fran kncss, no more and unbounded enthusiasm. Even Bergman, atier than simple protest; it is emoti onally fr igid, having disq ual ified von Trier's work, finall y philosophi ca ll y and politically void. \Vhat was intended pronounced his uureserved praise for Dancer in tit e to be a virulent attack on upper-class aesthetics by Dar!<. The lilin is stmctured around the concept of promoting ugliness, coarseness and ignorance, turns paradox, based on the supposition of a transgressive into nothing but yet another form of aesthet ic s, ir director enveloped in a projcct directly taken from the possible even more irritating than the one it claims to most classic of li lm-making tradi tio ns. The clash taking denounce. place in th e movie between opposing elements ends in their fu sion: opposites become complement ary to one anoth er, anti-ethical patterns unite. This, already seen BREAKING THE \VAVES in the very concept of the melodrama, the merger of Carlos Heredero music ancl struggle, takes the shape here of a voyage towards total suffering along a road mli ncd with Breaking thc Waves marks a very obvious point of tremendous joy. Dancer in the Darl< is envelopcd in a innection in Lars von Trier's career as a maker of film s. mysterious dark light. lt wends its way along the knife­ This is a work that has absolutely noth ing in common edge, never givi ng in to absurdity. Mysticism and with the "Europa" of the Danish director's first trilogy, a naturalism hold hands as von Trier succeeds in space of fic tional metaphor serving as a backdrop for his convincing us that the most natural way to descri be obsessions. The fonnalisti c and aesthetic rescarch so mystical happenings is by means of alrnost typical of the "Europa" trilogy gives way in Breaking documentary images, shot with a hand-he ld camera the \\'aves to a search for emotion in its purest of states. and at ground leve!. The pla usible and the impossible, This cbange is the result, on the one hand, of von Tri er's the rea l and the imaginary entwine perfectly. Thus, reaction against thc "castrating" education regarding von Trier sets a delica te bailad against a cold emotions trnnsmitted to him by his parents' left-wing industrial background, whi le making a murderer out of ideo logy, and, on the other, of his conversion to th e almost perfect personification of goodncss and Catholicism. The until then omnipresent masculine sacrifice in the shape of Selma. The same Selma wbo heroes are likewise replaced by the prominence of gaily cl eni es her own death as she consc iously heads idealistic, gcnerous women, capable even of taking thcir towards her mortal destiny in one of the most beauti fui own lives to defend that which they !ove. Although it endings cver filmed.

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