filmland / By Charlie Myers

Demme Goes to Dogville

The veteran director mines Dogme to create the fantastic Rachel Getting Married

(Feb. 12, 2009) Previews

Opening Friday, Feb. 13, with a timely subject, is The International, directed by Tom Tykwer (Perfume). Clive Owen stars as an Interpol agent who is investigating international banking corruption and Naomi Watts is a Manhattan ADA who becomes his ally. If the trailer is accurate, he needs all the help he can get. Rated R for some sequences of violence and language. 118m. At the Broadway and Mill Creek.

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Cleverly timed to the first such Friday this year, Friday the 13th is the latest take on the well-known horror film series. Jason is now portrayed by stuntman Derek Mears while Jared Padalecki (Gilmore Girls; House of Wax) plays the lead investigator of the latest sinister events at Crystal Lake. Amanda Righetti, currently in TV’s The Mentalist, is the designated female in danger. Rated R for strong bloody violence, some graphic sexual content, language and drug material. 97m. At the Broadway, Mill Creek and Minor.

Based on British author Sophie Kinsella’s book, Confessions of a Shopaholic is the latest film desperately seeking a female audience. Isla Fisher stars as college grad Rebecca who nurtures her addiction in Manhattan while writing a financial advice column. The Pussycat Dolls’ “Bad Girl” says it all. Rated PG for some mild language and thematic elements. 105m. At the Broadway and Mill Creek.

Reviews

RACHEL GETTING MARRIED: In 1995, Danish film directors Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg co-signed a statement now famously known as the Dogme 95 Manifesto and “Vow of Chastity.” Among its stipulations about filmmaking, it called for location shooting, a minimal reliance on technical elements (the only sound allowed, for example, was that which would be a part of the environment; no extraneous soundtrack music), use of a hand-held camera that focuses only on the action of the film, and so on. The scenes often seemed improvised, and von Trier in 2003 went so far as to paint the floor plan of his set on the otherwise undecorated studio floor in Dogville.

Rachel Getting Married clearly comes out of this tradition. Director Jonathan Demme, from a screenplay by Jenny Lumet (daughter of Sidney), makes great use of a hand-held camera and a series of appropriately intrusive close-ups to put the viewer completely in the world of the film. The narrative lends itself to this style of filmmaking: Kym (an incredibly fine Anne Hathaway) is released on a furlough from a rehab center so she can attend the wedding of her sister Rachel (an excellent Rosemarie DeWitt, currently in United States of Tara). Taking place over three days during the preparation for the wedding and the ceremony itself, Kym’s recovering addict presence serves as a powerful and explosive catalyst that uncovers suppressed family emotions.

In a way, it’s not fair to single out Hathaway’s performance in what is a fine ensemble cast. But Hathaway so expertly takes advantage of the close-ups, with her continually changing raw emotions mirrored by her facial expressions, that she’s impossible to ignore, and Demme constantly lets the camera focus on Kym even when she’s not the seeming center of the scene.

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