Italian For Beginners

The Dogme 95 Abbreviated Manifesto:

• Shooting on location with local props only.
• Sound and images produced simultaneously.
• Music only used if available at location.
• Hand held cameras only.
• No optics, SPFX or filters.
• No superficial action (murders, weapons etc).
• Must take place here and now in our world.
• No genres.
• Shot on Academy 35mm only.
• No crediting the director.

And so, we have another inclusion in the Dogme 95 stable, Italian For Beginners. With its beginnings quite complicated as we are introduced to the quagmire of characters, the storylines soon settle into a well paced rhythm that runs quite smoothly through the first half before we are dealt several shockers later on. Being a film from Dogme 95 the expectation of a decent storyline is understandable and happily, Italian For Beginners delivers just such a storyline.

Let me see if I can do this: Okay, Andreas is a new pastor in the church after losing his wife six months ago. Olympia is a clumsy bakery attendant with an aggressive arsehole for a father. Both these two are taking an Italian class. Jorgen and Halvfinn are best friends who work at the stadium with Giulia, an Italian waitress. She loves Jorgen but he doesn’t know it, and he loves her but she doesn’t know it. Halvfinn and Jorgen are also taking Italian. Karen is a hairdresser with an alcoholic, drug dependent mother. When her parent collapses and goes to hospital Karen befriends a nurse who is taking Italian classes (see where this is going yet?) Jorgen is instructed to sack Halvfinn and Giulia walks out with him. Giulia loses touch with them and yearns for Jorgen, and it isn’t until he meets Karen, by going in for a haircut, that they reunite. Then the Italian teacher dies. There’s more (a lot more!) but I shan’t ruin it by giving any more away.

A quite complicated storyline that is somehow easily followed makes this 94 minute film an intense piece with genuine moments of humour, sadness, grief and joy, all told through the wonderfully competent Danish cast. By the end, you will have forgotten the film is in Danish and you’ve been reading subtitles for the whole movie. If you don’t speak Italian, you may even find as I did, that you know more of the language than you thought you did!

In light of the Dogme manifesto, this film is presented in a 4:3 ratio, naturally without enhancement. The handheld camera gives it the feeling of cheap television or something like The Bill, but we forget that the longer we watch. There are some scenes destroyed by white balance problems and light glare, but that happens with this type of shooting on real sets with real light. These aren’t frequent however, nor are the grainy outdoor night shoots. For the most part the picture is what you would expect from a handheld camera, sometimes even having the familiarity of home movies. A lot of the shadows are quite deep and lose a lot of detail, but these are relatively incidental to the storyline and when adopting the context of the shoot, is entirely forgiveable.

Again to the manifesto, which states the sound must be recorded simultaneously to the action. That means there are no additions and (yippee!) no stock sound effects. It comes across generally well, though only presented in Dolby Digital stereo. The dialogue is clear, although unless you speak Danish or Italian, that probably doesn’t matter too much. There is very little music within the piece, but when it arcs up it is recorded live as well. Being a single piano, there aren’t too many issues regarding acoustics or whatnot, and it comes through fairly cleanly.

There’s a massive grab bag of extras on this DVD. Being only a single layered disc, it must be pretty full up I’m betting. The first treat is a short film that was made right here in sunny Oz by director Ben Chessell. This is 13 and a half minutes and is rather good. Entitled The Only Person in the World, I shall say no more but to say it’s about love and air trombone.

Next up come the biographies. Seven all up, including director Lone Sherfig (oops, credited!). The trailer follows, running for two minutes at 4:3 (of course). Then, for those of you not satisfied with my abbreviated version above, there is the seven page Dogme 95 manifesto. Very interesting stuff.

A standard photo gallery rocks up next with only 12 pics, and most of those are repeats from the biography pages. If you speak Danish, you’re in for a treat with our next three extras. Ten minutes of deleted scenes, three and a quarter minutes of outtakes and a 25 second TV spot all in Danish without subtitles (billed as 'Danish only' extras!). Finally, the obligatory world cinema trailers which feature The Best Man’s Wedding, My Wife Is An Actress (quite a funny trailer, actually), Read My Lips and The Last Kiss.

A huge package for a single layered disc (DVD 5) and great value (I wish I understood Danish. Sigh.)

If you’ve ever considered foreign films but thought them a little out-there, this is a good film with which to reconsider. A great series of intersecting storylines and characters reminiscent of films like Lantana, this is a well told tale with surprises and unexpected twists that will have you enthralled as to various outcomes by the end. The subtitles are clear and easily read throughout and there aren’t great volumes of backstory to remember. A well made production, given the context, and one that would certainly sit comfortably among others in the Dogme stable of films. In fact, this is storytelling pure and simple - it’s almost a documentary of ordinary lives and that contributes heavily to its appeal. Anyone wishing to investigate foreign film will find this a good way to begin, with its readily followed story and simple style with no major implications of local custom to try and understand.

Bellisimo!