Romance language
Despite their unglamorous appearance and idealistic underpinnings, many of the Dogma films (at least those shown in America) have proved lively and entertaining. The rules may or may not achieve "cinematic purity," but they impose a discipline on filmmakers and call for scripts that are lean and to the point, but loose enough to permit the kind of improvisation that the method facilitates.
The funniest Dogma film so far is writer-director Lone Scherfig's Italian for Beginners, a humorous look at a disparate group of lonely Danes who find companionship at, of all places, an ill-attended Italian night class.
Like most Dogma 95 movies, Beginners hits the ground running, offering a whirlwind tour of the characters populating a provincial suburb near Copenhagen. The recently widowed Andreas (Anders Berthelsen) steps in as the new reverend of the local church. Hot-headed Halvfinn (Lars Kaalund), manager of a hotel's sports restaurant, is best friends with a mild- mannered concierge addressed by his full name, Jorgen Mortensen (Peter Gantzler). Accident-prone Olympia (Anette Stovelbaek) works at the bakery, while comely Karen (Ann Eleonora Jorgensen) cuts hair.
At first most of our attention goes to Halvfinn, who hilariously berates his patrons, calling one woman a "pig" for putting a piece of used silverware on a tablecloth. Jorgen Mortensen has trouble firing his buddy Halvfinn, but that's just one of the many subplots that become increasingly compelling the closer we get to the characters. With apparently no other pastimes in town, the ensemble gravitates to Italian classes at the adult education center, popular among a handful of older ladies for the teacher's Latin-lover flair. But when the instructor has a heart attack, the grown students can't bring themselves to separate, causing them to step into unfamiliar roles.
Beginners finds plenty of amusement in romantic foibles, like the way hapless Jorgen Mortensen signs up for lessons as a means of wooing an Italian waitress. But darkness lurks in the film's corners. Some details are morbidly funny, like when we learn that the Rev. Wredmann (Bent Mejding), whom Andreas replaced, was suspended for pushing the church organist off the balcony following a crisis in faith. As in other Dogma films, Beginners has issues with difficult parents; Olympia must deal with an abusive, shut-in father while Karen watches her mother suffer an agonizing illness, keening terrifyingly in a hospital bed. Even Olympia's klutziness, which at first seems like forced pieces of slapstick, begins to have portents of parental neglect.
Italian For Beginners risks bogging down on the story's flashes of pain and cruelty or tripping at the plot's sizable coincidences, but it is fast-paced and nimble enough to clear such hurdles, thanks in large part to its ingratiating cast.
Italian for Beginners concludes with the class taking a vacation to Venice, an epilogue that isn't strictly necessary: By that time the plot threads have been tied off and the couples paired up. But the shots of gondolas on canals and lovers strolling on historic streets make a welcome change from the close-up, claustrophobic lives in Denmark, and the cast and audience alike get to take a deep breath of fresh air.
Beginners' characters don't just pick up a few Italian phrases, they learn to speak from their hearts. And director Lone Scherfig herself graduates with honors from her crash course in the Dogma method. There's a paradox to the filmmaking style, which imposes restrictions that somehow liberate the movies, giving them intimacy and freedoms that Italian for Beginners turns into a charming tale of hope and reconciliation.
