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After mentioning Dogme95 the other day, I finally managed to catch one of the films. Italiensk for begyndere (Italian For Beginners) is the 12th Dogme film and the first by a female director (not credited here, as per the Vow of Chastity). The players congregate in a Copenhagen suburb, including a substitute pastor who’s lost his wife, a hairdresser with an alcoholic mother, a restaurant manager who is so rude it’s astonishing it took nearly half the film before he got the sack and his best friend, the extremely polite receptionist who just happens to be impotent. (Poor sod.) And really, it seemed at first to be a dreary life that is painted.

That’s the impression I have of Dogme films, the spare and unfurnished style of film-making almost ensuring that the mood is dark and edgy. Pessimistic shit. (Like I need more of such, eh?) Luckily for me then, Italian For Beginners is none of that. The story is filled with an undercurrent of humour and an almost bouyant belief in hope that dares not speak up till near the end, when the whole Italian language class (hence the film title) ups to Venice for a class trip of sorts.

Everyone has lost something, suffered something, never found what they are after, not known what that is, and the Italian trip represents an offer of new beginnings, if they would only have the courage to try.

Interestingly, the only one who seems absolutely sure of what she wants (“Holy Mother, please let Jørgen Mortensen see me”) isn’t even Danish: Giulia, the pretty Italian waitress who gets her lovely long tresses cut into a short bob so she would look more mature for the older man she prays for. And it works! It’s beautiful and clear how such simple ruses are effective, because they aren’t ruses at all, just sincere longing. When the hairdresser asks her again if she really wants to cut her hair, Giulia smiles determinedly – Yes.

It’s “my hair matters not, I’ll do anything I can to get him because he is good and I have fallen in love with him” – unspoken because such things don’t have to be said, no useless romantic laments, just action. It’s amazing. It’s what made the story work for me, that despite their mundane, miserable and convoluted lives, they can be happy, they can make things work, if they just desire simply and sincerely, no guilt, no worrying…

Heck, it even fixed Jørgen Mortensen’s erectile dysfunction. Now that’s happiness surely.

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Current Mood: Optimistic
Current Music:

• Badly Drawn Boy – Once Around The Block
• Neil Finn – Sinner
• I Am Kloot – Morning Rain