Capital Celluloid 2012 - Day 333: Wed Nov 28

Open Hearts (Bier, 2002): Ritzy Cinema, 6.15pm

The Ritzy are putting on a terrific Dogme 95 season this week. Here is their introduction to this excellent season: Dogme 95 was an avant-garde filmmaking movement conceived in 1995 by Danish directors Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg. Together they created the Dogme 95 Manifesto, which comprised of a set of rules designed to produce a pure filmmaking style based on the traditional values of narrative, performance and core themes, and to reject the use of elaborate post-production modifications. For the first time ever, we bring you a selection of films made according to this manifesto. Join us as we undress filmmaking on the big screen. All screenings will be introduced by a film industry professional who has been associated with or inspired by Dogme 95. More details here.

Chicago Reader review:
“Tragedy is not an integral part of modern life the way it was in other eras,” says Danish director Susanne Bier, and in her wrenching 2002 drama the characters' inability to accept suffering—their own or other people's—leads to even greater heartache. A mother of three (Paprika Steen) hits a young man (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) with her car, leaving him a quadriplegic consumed by rage and self-pity. After he rejects his fiancee (Sonja Richter), the young woman rebounds into the arms of a compassionate doctor (Mads Mikkelsen) who turns out to be the driver's husband. Bier and screenwriter Anders Thomas Jensen (Mifune) have a precise sense of character, and they're aided by a fine cast—especially Steen as the guilt-stricken driver, who urges her husband to counsel the young woman and then sees her family torn apart by his infidelity.
J.R. Jones

Here is the trailer.

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