We’re all familiar with Dogme95 – a radical (to some) filmmaking movement that, since its creation in 1995, has seen Harmony Korine bring films such as “Julien Donkey Boy” to light. For “The Purified,” filmmaker Jesper Jargil has summonsed four of the leading figures in the Dogme95 movement – Lars Von Trier (“The Idiots”), Thomas Vinterberg (“Celebration”), Soren Kragh-Jacobsen (“Mifune”) and Kristian Levring (“The King is Alive”). He sits them down in a living where they are shown behind-the-scenes footage that Jargil captures while visiting the sets of their films. While they watch the footage, the filmmakers discuss the Dogme95 manifesto and the ten rules of the cinematic vow of Chastity the directors took in ’95. What’s more interesting is when they discuss how they often broke these rules they created.
There’s plenty of insight offered into the Dogme95 way of filmmaking, but for the most part, this film is made up of four guys sitting around, patting each other on the back for this accomplishment that has some film fans cheering, while others would decry it as a simple gimmick that’s run it’s course. For fans of the Dogme95 films only.
