Festen (1998)
A family gathers for a weekend celebration of Helge’s sixtieth birthday. At dinner, one of his sons, Christian, alleges Helge repeatedly raped him and his sister Linda when they were younger. Tormented by dreams their father would molest her again, Linda committed suicide just before the events of the film.
In 1995, hoping to reinvigorate filmmaking and avoid Hollywood clichés, Lars Von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg published a manifesto regarding how films should be made, prohibiting unnatural light and props, requiring films be shot on location and feature limited music.
Directed by Vinterberg, the first film made using these principles is a a tad too sensational. The minimalism of the Dogme aesthetic almost keeps the theatrics from becoming too much, but it feels almost too natural.
The movie captures the torture of abuse, the helplessness of knowing no one will believe you, and the implicit fear your word is not enough. While it’s important not to allow someone’s life to be ruined because of false accusations, it doesn’t make things easier for victims who feel like they’re on trial.
Vinterberg would tackle the other side of the issue in The Hunt (2012), where a teacher is inadvertently, and falsely, accused of molesting one of his students.
Beau Travail (1999)
Galoup is a master sergeant in the French Foreign Legion. When the beautiful Gilles Sentain joins his troop, a jealous Galoup tries to kill him by abandoning him in the middle of the desert without a working compass. Sentain survives, and Galoup is court martialed for his transgression.
Claire Denis’s pseudo-adaptation of Herman Melville’s novel Billy Budd is universally acclaimed, but I found it to be a little pretentious. I was never invested in the characters or what happened to them.
In general, I’m not really interested in post-colonialism. Colonialism was a horrible ideology which led to lots of unforeseen calamities, but I’m more interested in possible solutions to the problems of the Third World than being told once more how the West ruined Africa.
Denis Lavant was wonderful in the enigmatic Holy Motors (2012). He’s fine here, but never spectacular — until the closing dance sequence. I only wish the first 80 minutes were as good as the last, haunting five.