adeline7g Reviews

Dogville Confessions (2003)

Intrigueing, disturbing...

[8/10 · 29 November 2005]

If you've seen Dogville, and were intrigued by it, then you can't miss this documentary. If anything, I felt even more disturbed after watching Dogville Confessions than watching the movie itself.

Dogville Confessions isn't your ordinary "making of" documentary. Rather, it focuses less on the technicalities of filming and more on the interactions between the director, the script and the actors, during their gruelling period of filming in an old warehouse in the frozen part of Sweden.

A "confession box" is placed on the set, with a video camera. It's available 24 hours a day, and strangely, the actors do end up in the box relating their experiences from time to time.

We discover that director Lars Von Trier doesn't get along with actors so well. And it really comes out in Confessions when we get to see first-hand how ineffectively he interacts with the actors, in particular with Nicole Kidman, Lauren Bacall, Paul Bettany and Stellan Skarsgard.

We see tempers flare on set. There are tears, arguments, confusion. But this is no soap opera - it's a weird disjointedness that seems to affect everyone involved in the filming. It's like Dogville temporarily overtook these people's lives for the duration of filming.

After the Rain (1999)

Great acting... but the shoestring budget really shows

[7/10 · 2 February 2005]

This film was based on the director's own play 'Soweto's Burning'. It's a powerful story of testing the bounds of apartheid through friendship, love and hate.

Paul Bettany plays Steph, the reluctant Afrikaan soldier who's pushed to his limits by the events that unfold. Louise Lombard is Emma, Steph's girlfriend, and friend to Joseph, the black man played by Ariyon Bakare.

The story is engaging, and the performances by the 3 leads are brilliant. Particularly Bettany, who manages to pull off this complex character without any difficulty.

With better direction and cinematography this film would have been really great, but instead, the excellent plot is tied down by the TV-series-like style. The entire movie was filmed in just a few locations, and gives the impression of being too closely adapted from the play on a shoestring budget. The essence of Africa which is so important to this story was slightly lost through all this.

Overall, a good drama, and surely one of it's kind. Great dialogue, a powerful story and engaging performances from the actors.