DOGMA films

For me, Lars Von Trier is the best director. All his films have something different.
He is a good writrer as well.

He always like to experiment in the way to make films.

I love DOGMA films!!!

For you which are the best dogma films you´ve ever seen???

I generally prefer old Von Trier to later Von Trier, but I’d stick my neck out for “the Idiots”

von trier’s more than a good writer. he’s great.

i cant stand old von trier. element of crime did nothing 4 me. epidemic was terrible. europa was pretty great though. and i luv idiots and dogville and manderlay.

I think Madea, Element of Crime and Europa are great…And I’m partial to epidemic, so we’ll have to agree to disagree there.

I think Dogville is fantastic actually, one of the best written movies I’ve seen in this era for sure

I really can’t stand Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the Dark however.

I think Dancer in the Dark was the first film of his that I saw and it will probably remain my favorite. At first I really didn’t like it. Half way through the film is when it really got to me though. I think it’s a very hard film to watch, emotionally that is. I next watched Dogville through a recommendation by a friend, which I was a bit apprehensive at first because I’m not particularly fond of Nicole Kidman. But I hadn’t ever seen anything like this though, as far as the entire film taking place on a sound stage with the environment being extremely minimal. But I think my next favorites would be Breaking the Waves and The Kingdom both the same. I thought the Five Obstructions was really great as well. I haven’t been able to muscle my way through all of Element of Crime. I’d like to watch it and Epidemic since I recently watched Europa. I’d like to find a copy of the Idiots but can’t seem to find one with english subs.

As far as the Dogme 95 films go, while I REALLY enjoyed The Idiots, and rank it among my favorite films to date, I would have to say that I enjoyed Thomas Vinterberg’s The Celebration the best of all of the Dogme films I’ve seen. The way in which he utilized the hand-held camera to tell a narrative which lent itself well to said style, as well as the emotionally charged subject matter and actor/actress performances simply FLOORED me! However, I also have to say that Von Trier’s Dogme Film as well as Soren Kragh-Jacobsen’s Mifune were also incredibly amazing films, which had their own intrigues about them. One of my favorite things about the “Dogme” movement is seeing what different directors DO within the limitations, and while one of the goals is to strip the films of all of the ‘style’ of the director I think that the different directors styles are totally present. Also I think it’s kind of funny that we’re talking about these films in direct relation to their directors considering the directors weren’t even credited, and they wanted to get away from the auteurist cinematic practices… haha

I have to agree The Celebration is my favorite. The story is so enthralling that I think it could be filmed any way and be great, but it also lent well to the limitations. The scene towards the beginning when they are in the room of the dead sister. Yikes.
Also, I’m not sure how people feel about it being a true “Dogma Film,” but Julien Donkey Boy is great.

Ditto Tommy re 5 Obstructions.

As per my entry on the FANTASY ARTHOUSE DOUBLE FEATURE post, I’m going to second Edourd’s choice of Mifune. My suggested Dogme double bill on that post, started off with Søren Kragh-Jacobsen’s gentle relationship drama followed by Marius Holst’s “Øyenstikker” a darker, brooding drama/thriller hybrid. I was intrigued by the atmosphere of both films.

I’d agree that Festen (The Celebration) is the best Dogme film. I hated The Idiots. I couldn’t even finish it. It’s also the only of Trier’s films – aside from Medea, which was just OK – that I didn’t love. I found Dogville to be especially interesting, and The Kingdom was creepy as hell.

Kristian Levring’s The King Is Alive was pretty good. It’s about some tourists on a bus in Africa who get lost and wind up putting on a production of King Lear (I think it was King Lear) while they wait for rescue.

There’s a Brazilian Dogme film called “Fuckland” that sounds mildly amusing. The idea is that Brazil starts a plot to retake the Falklands by having lots of babies with the people who live there, so that they can just turn the place Brazilian in a few generations.

Harmony Korine took the Dogme pledge and confessed his sins, so Julien Donkey Boy is indeed a “true Dogma Film.”

^julien broke a few commandments in the process though. Crediting the director, using non-diegetic sound. I agree that he broke them tastefully and nevertheless stands as a good example of Dogma95

Liked Breaking The Waves and The Kingdom. Haven’t much cared for his other films. If Dogme was responsible for Julien Donkey Boy than they have a lot to answer for. Probably the worst film I’ve ever seen.

Breaking the Waves pretty much is a Dogme, minus the chapters and music. Watching it on the big screen might make you seasick though. Julien Donkey Boy is completely hilarious and worth the price of admission alone to watch Werner Herzog as an abusive father. “Am I hypersensitive?” Plus Ewan Bremner’s performance as a schizophrenic is really top notch. My personal favorite Dogme is Fuckland. Dogme #8 directed by José Luis Marquès. This is what Dogme should be, irrevrent. The Idiots reaches towards this plateau, but Fuckland nails it. Simply shot with a shitty video camera, it’s what I wish other indie directors would do, but never come close.

@Michael-John Hansen -
They all broke a few commandments. For example, most everyone shot on DV or video and then transferred to 35mm, even though one of the commandments is to shoot on 35mm. As far as I know, von Trier was the only one to actually use 35mm. They had to “confess their sins” in front of the rest of the signatories before they could get the seal of approval.

i tried watching breaking the waves a fortnight ago, and only made it to the third chapter. i will revisit it soon tho, i just wasnt in the right frame of mind to watch it then. i picked up dancer in the dark on the same day too, alas it is still in the packaging, but again ill get around to watching it soon. im keener on his earlier work, europa is absolutely stunning, and off of the back of seeing the recent criterion edition a few weeks back (the move that spurred the order of breaking the waves and dancer in the dark) i bought element of crime too.

re- the “rules” of dogme. – vinterburg and von trier both stated numerous times that one of the key rules was that they were broken. the entire movement was practically one big hypocritical joke.

I just watched the Idiots today. Astounding film, though i had already seen it as a play. Really, really great in that it epitomizes the Dogme95. The film itself is “an idiot” in the way that it breaks with the unreal facades and chains, and is nothing but true.

Though i don’t fully agree with the dogma wave, it sure spawned a few great pieces…

The Idiots and The Celebration are masterpieces. The Idiots has to be one of the most powerful films that I’ve ever seen. I also have a soft spot in my heart for Julian Donkey Boy.

Elsker dig for evigt – Dogma #28 – Susanne Bier – LOVE IT!!!

Dogma:

FESTEN is the best dogma film on technical and entertainment grounds. MIFUNE & IDIOTERNE are decent and worth a rewatch. THE KING IS ALIVE sucks. JULIEN DONKEY BOY is also decent, but I’ll never watch it again, because it is brutal and very pretentious.

Lars Von Trier:

I watched his entire catalog until THE FIVE OBSTRUCTIONS. I prefer THE KINGDOM above all his pretension. It is entertaining, complex, raises more questions each epsiode as it answers a few, has absurd humor, and Von Trier seems to have enjoyed making it if him appearing in the credits is any indication.

I Love The Idiots, from Lars Von Trier
But for example The BlairWitch Proyect, is not considerate a Dogma film ,because it breacks the rule number 8:
“Genre movies are not acceptable”

Lars Von Trier has only made one dogme film. The idiots.

I think The Idiots is an amazing work of unrestrained emotional power, and Julien Donkey-Boy, like Korine’s other films, has a kind of unnameable beauty. Also, though it definitely does not follow all the rules, does anyone agree that Rachel Getting Married might be called a dogme film in spirit?

@Brandon Duncan

Re: Julien Donkey-Boy

What a film: gorgeously shot, well acted, badly paced, brutal themes. It definitely goes in the really-good-yet-uneven-films-I’ll-never-watch-again category next to most of Lars von Trier’s oeuvre.