More Love/Cinema

[Jasper Sharp]

Thanks to every one who has responded to my questions. You?ve been very 
helpful. However, I?m a little surprised that no one based in Japan has 
anything to say. I?m rather wondering how these films were pitched and 
marketed to the Japanese public, because theatrical features shot in DV were 
still a bit of a novelty at the time these films must have been made.
Remember, the first Dogma film, FESTEN, though it seems like quite a while 
ago, only came out about a year and a half before the Love Cinema films, and 
Harmony Korine?s JULIAN DONKEY BOY was made only a few months previously. In 
the UK, the Dogma films were trumped up as revolutionary pieces of ?art?, 
reviewers focussing more on the content of the films rather than the 
possibilities of the medium for future generations of film-makers. Thus Lars 
Von Trier?s virtually unwatchable THE IDIOTS, apparently conceived as some 
attack on the art house bourgoisie who pay good money to go and watch his 
films, was given a lot of press in Britain due approach to its 
taboo-breaking subject matter. To my mind rather missed a rather interesting 
point - that advances in film making technology were making it far easier 
for film-makers to get their stories onto the screen.
Regardless of the merits of the individual films in the series, at the time 
this DV revolution seemed to yield a lot of exciting possibilities, and 
naturally people seemed quite excited about it. Were the films a little more 
accessible to the general public, perhaps people might have got a little 
used to this rawer aesthetic. I can only thing of one subsequent 
Dogma-inspired film, Michael Winterbottom?s WONDERLAND, that to my mind 
actually succeeded in this respect.
So I know that the Love Cinema films received a VERY limited release in 
Japan, but how much excitement did they generate? From the replies so far, 
it would appear that probably more foreign audiences have seen them than 
Japanese, and yet from what I?ve seen of the individual films, they seem 
rather more targeted to Japanese audience. Was the press just not 
interested? Can we say that the Love Cinema films went by rather unnoticed 
in Japan? Are they even available at the moment in Japan? And finally, is 
this Dogma/ Love Cinema parallel even valid?

Thanks,
Jasper, still scratching his head.


Midnight Eye - japan_cult_cinema
www.midnighteye.com


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