Adam0001 A original and quite disturbing look at human psychology in a terrene rather different from what we are used to. It is rare that one can go ahead and call a film genius but in this instance it is not difficult. I have never seen a film which in such a simple manor built very strong character development, but this is what leads me to the location. Simple, visually stunning and to think about there seclusion from reality leaves you with only them. Which is why they are developed so well. They are raw and real to life each going through there own trials and tribulations.The basis story is while a bus is driving through the desert with tourists, it takes a very inconvenient wrong turn. they end up deep in the desert. Watching them fall deep into hell if fascinating. The conclusion to this film is extremely powerful and without any doubt will stay memorable for a long time. Seeing how powerful the desert is against us is excellent and seeing King Lear being recited within is quite unbelievable. In conclusion the deserts power and symbolism which was taken for granted is more powerful than our education and lifestyles.Kristian Levring directed this project fantastically and even though Dogme95' ended around 6 years ago I would like to see him take more stylistic choices.

stodruza This film isn't for everyone. It is the second dogma film that I have seen, and if this is any indication of the quality of this movement then forget Hollywood affectations, this is where the action is. There are some wonderful moments in this film. Time seems to stop, and exists only within the film. These moments are existential moments that lead us closer to recesses of our collective humanity and inhumanity in real time than anything else I have ever seen on screen.These kind of films to me reveal the illusion (it happens so rarely) that the big, fat, overweight, overwrought, pompous emperor that goes by the name of "Hollywood" (who will have a heart attack in a few years or more likely give the culture one) really is naked, with mammon and everybody else in line grovelling at his feet.Pull off your veil (if you can), turn off your TV (very difficult to do) exit Plato's cave, and start watching Dogma films if you can. When you come back out of the light, everyone will call you crazy, of course, and most everyone else will agree, that is, if they are not totally enraged by the luminance and the light, then watch out! Or completely baffled by it, as a lot of people are. Just read some of these reviews.This is real drama! Dogma is truly where the value is.

diagrace-1 I remain unimpressed, worried, and confused about "Dogma". Is there anything fresh being done here? As for the existential possibilities of a group stranded together in unfamiliar, perhaps threatening conditions; as for the warped-mirroring of theatre and life; and as for disjointed filming and bumpy cameras -- please, don't anyone get their hopes up that there's anything revealing, glimmering, or meaningful here. The film takes a small view of human nature, yet there is one character, the native who watches and narrates, who seems to have a genuine eye. Why couldn't this have been the film- maker's eye? Perhaps ancient cultures are just not "Dogmatic" enough for this postmodern world. I am only glad that the film-makers had room in their hearts for this character.

tedg Spoilers herein.`Woman in the Dunes' meets `French Lieutenant's Woman' meets `Strangers in Good Company.'Films about film ideas are generally dreary affairs, engaging more on an intellectual level than the visceral world that is film's strength. Superficially, this film falls into that category with the `dogma' bit as a seemingly political statement. In order to support it, we have what appears to be an ordinary kind of genre story (damaged people stranded in some way, with the resulting scrapes and dents). Judged on this grounds, this film is a failure: the dynamics among the characters just don't engage us by themselves.But a dogma film is supposed to not be a genre film, so what gives? Perhaps genres are impossible to avoid. Perhaps this film intends something different: to be an exploration of acting and representation on screen. I take it as that. Although the filmmaker insists that the selection of `King Lear' is an offhand one, I do not believe him. `Lear' is all about the eye, and whether perceptions can be trusted, and what sort of hidden demons lurk on that road between the writer's and viewer's minds.It is the basis of a similar `dogma'-like experiment in music: John and Yoko's `Revolution #9,' Playing precisely the same role there though not so explicit as here.Hundreds of films in the past couple years deal in some way with the merger of actor and character, and the conflating of the experience you see and another you see created (the film within). I have a database on these -- you'd be surprised how common is the notion. But among these -- and going back in time somewhat -- one of the most interesting along the dogma lines is Godard's `King Lear,' a truly amazing film. It is quoted here in a few places.The key point is that the `best' theater is close to the chaos of life, out of which the viewer can shape his own narrative based on their own demons. My narrative for this film is centered on the man who plays the King here, Brion James. He played Leon in `Blade Runner,' the intellectual of the four targeted (bladed) replicants. That film is similarly about seemingly self-generated impressions. I had it from Dick in the seventies that his story (and a couple others) was inspired by `Lear' and `Tempest,' precisely because of this untrusted, constructed memory thing.In `Lear' of course, the King dies -- and with him we are meant to think -- dies the bending of reality that he carried about with him, screwing up all that came close. But in the film, the King stays alive, which I take to be the point: we never escape the perturbing lens of film. In `real' life of course, Brion died right after filming this. In the film, he merely suffers delirium and is replaced by the actor/writer/director of the play. That makes sense.Jennifer Jason Leigh takes on the Cordelia role, the one where Godard placed Molly Ringwald! Ms Leigh is among those actresses whose appeal is in her raw commitment. She doesn't work, she completely subordinates herself, just exactly like the sexual `performance' we see here. It's an annoying habit of these young filmmakers to pack irony into every crevice, so she plays the one character in Lear that is incapable of just this commitment to artifice. That childish insistence on the part of Levring (and so many others) drags the whole affair down a couple notches from being worth watching. Oh well.The surrogate for the filmmaker is played by David Bradley, who we have recently seen in a role deliberately taken from Lear: in the Harry Potter 2 spectacle as the groundskeeper and his magically petrified cat -- petrified because of the reflection it saw. Flibbertegibbit!Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 4: Has some interesting elements.