I recently watched Miracle at the dollar theater. Let me say that I am very glad that I didn’t spend more than a dollar on it, though I wish I hadn’t spent even that. The movie is about the 1980 US Olympic Hockey team—another cookie cutter sports movie. I can’t be sure, but I think I actually cared about the characters in Mighty Ducks. That was certainly not the case with Miracle. The characters that I most empathized with were

  1. The guy who got cut
  2. Russian Coach/Team
  3. Czech Team
  4. Finnish Team

The movie had all the “right” scenes and plot elements. The scene where the coach’s wife gets mad that the husband spends to much time coaching the team. The you’re-just-doing-it-to-relive-your-dreams scene. The make-them-practice-til-they-drop scene. The scene where the you and the athletes realize that they actually respect the mean-coach-who-was-only-mean-because-he-wants-them-to-do-well. And of course the obligatory loss to their rivals shortly before the championship where they come back from behind to barely win. The everyone-making-it-into-something-more-than-a-game and then the coach realizing that it really-is-more-than-a-game-because-people-care-about-it. However none of these scenes were convincing in the least. For example, the wife-getting-made and reliving-your-dreams scene takes place about 5 minutes into the show. At that point I still had no idea who the people were, and certainly no feelings for them. I hadn’t seen anything to make me even suspect that he was spending too much time coaching.

The cinematography was flashy, though generally pretty good. There was one scene where it seemed a seasick toddler was at the camera, but all the hockey game shots (far too many) were exciting and well executed. The budget was obviously rather large. None of that mattered in the end. The movie was utterly unengaging.

Compare to this, the doctrine of Dogma 95. Although several of the restrictions placed by Dogma 95 are possibly overkill, and others would be horrible if adopted by everyone, I do think the general idea is interesting, if not genius. For those not interested enough to read the entire “Vow of Chastity” the following are a few of the items to which a Dogma 95 directors must conform.

  • Shooting must be done on location. Props and sets must not be brought in.
  • The sound must never be produced apart from the images or vice versa. (Music must not be used unless it occurs where the scene is being shot).
  • The camera must be hand-held.
  • Special lighting is not acceptable.
  • Optical work and filters are forbidden.
  • The film must not contain superficial action.
  • The film must take place here and now.
  • Genre movies are not acceptable.

Now I admit I haven’t seen an actual Dogma 95 film, but I did see Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself on the flight from Chicago to London. At the time, and for a few weeks after, I hadn’t even heard of Dogma 95. Then I caught a review of Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself on NPR that mentioned Dogma 95. The director of WWtKH takes a few liberties that aren’t allowed in Dogma 95, but the general flavor remains the same. In fact Lone Scherfig, the Danish director of WWtKH, also directed the Dogma film Italiensk For Begyndere (Italian for Beginners).

As one watches Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself, one can definitely see the influence of Dogma 95. I think this is a good part of why I like it. There is a certain confident humility. A sense that the cast and crew care enough about the story to tell it well. There is no need for flashy photography, sappy music, or even good music to set the mood.

I don’t know if you have noticed, but life isn’t like the movies. Movies always look better (or worse) than real life. Nothing in real life will ever look as good as in a movie. There’s no music to tell you when to be happy, sad, or scared. Even the ACM ICPC world finals were pretty normal compared to movies. They had all the decorations that one might expect from a movie, but it was just a little too mundane. All the activities were at five star hotels, but despite the huge marble staircases, they didn’t seem that grand. At least not as grand as they would have been in a movie. Perhaps tangibility cheapens things. Makes them more vulgar (in the original sense of the word). WWtKH didn’t seem that way as much. The whole movie had a homey, lived in, this-is-real feel to it. It was very refreshing. I don’t remember if there was music or not, but if so it was unobtrusive. Why can’t movies reflect reality instead of telling us what to expect from life?

One of the things that I liked most about Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself is that there was no specific moral that it tried to teach us. There was no one emotion that it tried to evoke. Life isn’t like that, why should a movie be? People react in very different ways to the same events because everyone has different experiences. WWtKH will no doubt mean something different to everyone who sees it. As I was writing this entry, I read reviews from people who apparently thought it was a comedy. I did not. I don’t even remember any funny parts. I found it a very serious, even sobering, movie about real people who have no choice but to make the best out of a bad situation. Nevertheless, the movie was not depressing, or hopeless, quite the opposite. You simply care about the characters because you have no other choice. They become real, more real than in any other movie I have seen recently. Life for the characters isn’t glamorous, nor dramatic. It just is. In exactly the same way that my life just is. I don’t live a glorious life, nor do I live a tragic life. Occasionally I find myself wishing that things had happened a little differently, just so they would have been more dramatic, or funny, or whatever. But that isn’t the way life works. Movies give a distorted view of reality, not so much because things in movies can’t happen in real life, but because they teach us that everything must serve some purpose. It must be dramatic. Or funny. Or heighten the conflict. Or resolve it. Now, I certainly don’t advocate showing all the mundane details of life in movies—that would be incredibly boring. But I do advocate showing us characters that we care about.

We can care about most anyone if given a chance. Give us a chance! It won’t do to simply tell us that your characters are interesting, you must prove it to us. That means showing us experiences that shape them. Show us their quirky reactions to things. Show us characters that are not flat stereotypic automatons, but people with real interests, real hopes, real dreams, real pain. Pain that can’t always be expressed. Dreams that don’t often come to fruition. Hopes that can only be hinted at. In other words, show us people just like me. People like my roommates. People like those I hometeach. Like my parents, my siblings. Like most anyone you will ever meet. Teach us that we can care about these people, and hopefully we will realize that we can care about real life people too. And realize that they are interesting, with hopes, dreams, aspirations, and pain. In short teach us charity. But don’t do it condescendingly by preaching to us. Teach it by making us enjoy it. That way we won’t be able to resist. We will have to reach out to those around us.

Before you rush out to watch Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself, I will warn you. I don’t think movies are rated in the UK, because there were no ratings on the in-flight movies. I didn’t know the rating on Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself, but I found there was a lot of swearing, and the themes of the movie were definitely not for young audiences. But I think that you could probably tell that from the title, non? It is definitely not a movie that I would recommend to everyone, perhaps not to anyone. But I do feel that there ought to be more movies like this. Movies that make me feel, and make me think. Even though I may not agree with everything the characters do, I will always have a special spot in my heart for Wilbur, Harbour, Alice, and Mary. That’s what life is about isn’t it? I even care for the relatively minor characters of Horst and Moira. When was the last time you felt that a minor character in a movie was actually a real person? Let alone an interesting one? It certainly wasn’t while watching Miracle.

Why have I become so difficult to please of late?