heyho-letsgo

Julian Donkey Boy, created under the Dogma 95 – Vow of Chastity, is in my opinion, one of the worst films I have ever had the displeasure of sitting through. The Vow of Chastity states that the director must refrain from personal taste, and not create a work of art. All shooting must be done on location, with hand held cameras, and no sound can be used unless it is found where the scene is being shot. It also prohibits the use of superficial actions such as murder. All of this is meant to lead to a film which forces the truth out of its characters and settings, even at the expense of aesthetic considerations and good taste.

Harmony Korine has certainly managed to create a film with no apparent taste, and even less aesthetic consideration. All this could be acceptable if the end product gave its audience something to take away, other than feelings of disgust. In a film about a dysfunctional family, where Julian is either mentally ill, or mentally deficient, his sister is pregnant with his child, his mother is dead, and his father is abusive, you would expect to be both shocked and moved. The final scene where Julian's sister slips on the ice and miscarries their child should be incredibly emotional, but I found myself completely unmoved as after nearly 90 minutes, I had formed no emotional attachment to any of the characters. For this reason, I didn't find the story disturbing, it failed to have any effect on me at all.

Some people have said that this is a tough film to sit through, and on that I would agree. But not because of the subject matter, rather that after sitting through an hour and a half of nauseating film making, we have been given nothing.

Personally, I like to watch a film every now and again that is made unconventionally, as I think they are interesting and make great works of art. But this film isn't trying to be a work of art, rather the opposite, so you have to ask what is it really doing? In the end, the only reason so many films are made in such similar ways, is just like why stories are told with such similar devices, because that is what works, and that's what audiences want. This film is trying to drive a car with square wheels, just because everyone else has round ones. It may have had good intentions to begin with, but they have become lost somewhere amongst the flurry of vertiginous shots, and incoherent story line. Whilst a valuable educational resource for film students I wouldn't recommend this film for anyone else

My initial thoughts whilst watching Christine Jeffs debut film 'Rain', were that the narrative crawled along at a pace far too slow for enjoyment. For a 92 minute film, there weren't a lot of obvious plot advances to keep me transfixed to the screen, or even that interested at all. The one thing that kept me watching was the beautiful cinematography of John Toon, and the stunning landscapes of New Zealand. The repeated use of photographically perfect sunsets and shots of the sea for most of the establishing shots throughout the film kept me wanting the current scene to end just so I could watch the next establishing shot.

However, I was glad that I kept watching because I began to notice the more subtle side to the narrative, which I had at first, thought was missing altogether. Alicia Fulford-Wierzbicki's performance as the troubled 13 year old Janey starts off as a little unsure, but she seems to grow into the role throughout the film, until she becomes a character we can really feel connected to. Her portrayal of a young teenage girl struggling to cope with her journey into adolescence and new found sexual energy is incredibly moving, especially at the end when it leads to the death of her younger brother Jim. The performances of the rest of the cast I found to be not so powerful, but still effective in more subtle ways. Janey's dad, played by Alistair Browning, show's his feelings towards the breakdown of his marriage through small and relatively unnoticeable acts such as when he say's to his children 'because families do things together', whilst his wife is at home with a hangover.

Another of this film's defining features is its careful use of non- diegetic music which really manages to capture the mood of each scene. The piano music that accompanies Kate's walk across the beach to Cady's boat starts off quite slow and relaxed, but builds up the closer she gets, like a mirror to Kate's emotions as she gets closer and closer to cheating on her husband. The acoustic song played over the scene where Janey finds Jim dead on the beach, is another example of just how useful getting the right song is, as it encapsulates most of the film into this one defining moment.

It is that moment that, in my opinion, where this film crosses over the boundary of a simple coming of age film, into something else completely. In one instant, all the worries about Janey growing up and seducing Cady, Kate's affair with Cady, and the general breakdown of Kate and Ed's marriage, are put into a harsh perspective. Throughout the film, Jim plays a backseat role, not really impacting on the story significantly, and the rest of the characters end up neglecting him. We are reminded just how small and insignificant in the overall scheme of things that such worries are, and how when people get so caught up in their own lives and problems, that the little things, often the more important ones, can be overlooked, with tragic consequences.