trendaway.com

Dear Wendy was written by Lars von Trier and directed by Thomas Vinterberg. These men have a history of working together, as both were co-founders of Dogme 95 (Vinterberg directed Dogme #1, Festen (The Celebration). Starring Jamie Bell and featuring Bill Pullman, this film?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s theme is ?¢‚Ǩ?ìpacifists with guns?¢‚Ǩ¬ù, an obvious contradiction that is played out very nicely. Vinterberg was present for this North American premiere, as well as two of the young actors from the film. They were all very well spoken and provided what was probably the best q&a of the six that I saw during the festival.

I loved the movie. It used a fair amount of voice-over narration which was pretty witty, and also provided some depth to Bell?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s main character, Dick. The setting is a small American mining town, where basically everyone works underground. The story revolves around a group of young social outcasts (?¢‚Ǩ?ìlosers?¢‚Ǩ¬ù) who form a group (led by Dick) called The Dandies. They hang out in an abandonded mine and obsess over guns. They clean them, learn about them, name them, ?¢‚Ǩ?ìmarry?¢‚Ǩ¬ù them, and shoot them at targets. If they think something is cool, they call it ?¢‚Ǩ?ìdandy?¢‚Ǩ¬ù.

Each of them develops an eerie relationship with their guns, as well as a unique style of shooting which represents their personality. They are very firm on the ?¢‚Ǩ?ìpacifist?¢‚Ǩ¬ù thing, and one of their creeds is that they are never to be used to kill another person; they are so horrified by the idea of killing that they call it ?¢‚Ǩ?ìloving?¢‚Ǩ¬ù ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú an interesting allegory to the relationships that they have developed to their firearms, and also a clue to their disillusionment.

Each of the characters has just enough depth and development to remain interesting. They carry their guns around with them (concealed) and we witness them change from scared kids into confident young adults. Contrarily, they start to act like little kids in the way that they play around. I read that von Trier?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s original script was written with the characters being in their thirties, but Vinterberg felt that they would be better suited as young adults ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú a great decision, I think. Anyway, at the movie?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s climax (which was both expected but still somewhat shocking), I was thinking about how childish the events were. The situation was juvenile and completely unnecessary, but I guess we aren?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t supposed to be noticing the story at this point; what?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s going on is simplified so that we think more about the themes rather than the story.

I loved the character development, photography, tongue-in-cheek humor, build-up and use of music in Dear Wendy. It was satisfying in so many ways ?¢‚Ǩ‚Äú a fun, intense film with enough food for thought to last at least month (which is how long it took me to post something about it).