Winter is here, and that means it's time for all those movies that were afraid to get clobbered in the winter box office to peep out their heads and take their month in the limelight.
Shaky Camerawork, Film
This month, the 12th official Dogme film will be released in the US. The Dogme movement, which forever changed Danish filmmaking back in 1995 with the release of the dark comedy The Celebration, were meant to bring back realism by using only hand-held cameras, natural lighting, and bare bones production sound. Twelve films later, it seems that the sentiment is lost but the process remains. The camerawork still looks shaky, the dialogue still sounds coarse, but the plot holds none of the intensity of Dogme's earlier films. Italianfor Beginners is a love and loss story about six strangers who meet in a community college Italian class. A variety of grief-inspiring events bring the strangers together, ultimately leading to the sappy and predictable denouement.Individually, the characters are well developed and realistic. As a group they seem bonded by only a quiet desperation to escape their depressing lives, which are plagued by the death of their relatives. The widowed minister (Anders W. Berthelsen), Olympia, the clumsy bakery clerk (Anette Stovelbaek), and Karen, the passionate hairdresser (Ann Eleonora Jorgensen) have all recently experienced the loss of their wife, father, mother, or some other generic family member. Hal Finn (Lars Kaalund), a sports bar manager, is laid off and reluctant to find other employment. Finn is fluent in Italian and takes the college course only to impress the women in the class. When the instructor dies of a heart attack, Finn decides to run the class.
The film is rated R, supposedly for language and sexuality, but the true reason is because somebody dies tragically every ten minutes. Italian for Beginners is undeniably morose, in spite of the characters' abilities to wash away the stench of death in sexual intercourse and good conversation. If you believe that six people can have nothing in common and be brought together by a language they don't speak, see this movie. If you get motion sickness, hate subtitles (this movie contains German and Italian), or want to enjoy your evening, don't see this movie.
Dark, Darker, Darko
Donnie Darko creeped me out from the moment I went to its web site (www.donniedarko.com). The web site is as mysterious as the film, which has been shrouded in secrecy despite the star-studded cast put together by producer Drew Barrymore. Jake Gyllenhaal (October Sky) portrays the brooding schizophrenic "Donnie" Darko. Donnie, a high school student whose life is slowly torn apart by his paranoid schizophrenia, searches for the truth behind his vivid hallucinations. Donnie's discoveries threaten to unravel the world around him.Within this paranoid state he is frequented by a grotesque human-sized rabbit named Frank who warns him of the earth's impending doom. Donnie's parents cling to him as he pushes them away, and he finds solace in the arms of his girlfriend Gretchen (Jena Malone). Gretchen runs from her ghosts, while Donnie now seems determined to contend with his. He challenges the preaching of a popular local 12-step author (Patrick Swayze), lays siege upon his high school, and comes to accept his own wild imagination.
Unfortunately, Donnie Darko is only being released to theaters in select locations. It recently premiered in the Boston area at the Brattle Theatre, whose selections are a refreshing alternative to the typical box office buffet. Intended for release nearly three months ago, Darko was most likely held back due to the graphic plane crash that sets the film in motion. If you missed it in the theater and you still want to see it, don't sweat it - Donnie Darko is scheduled to be released on DVD this March.
