Dear Wendy
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Dear Wendy |
| Original title | Dear Wendy |
| Country of production | Denmark France Germany United Kingdom |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 2005 |
| length | 105 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 18 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Thomas Vinterberg |
| script | Lars from Trier |
| production | Sisse Graum Jørgensen |
| music | Benjamin Wallfisch |
| camera | Anthony Dod Mantle |
| cut | Mikkel EG Nielsen |
| occupation | |
| |
Dear Wendy is a feature film by the Danish director Thomas Vinterberg . The drama is based on an original script by Vinterberg's compatriot Lars von Trier and was produced by the film studios Lucky Punch , Nimbus Film , Zentropa Entertainments and TV2 Denmark . Dear Wendy started in German cinemas on October 6, 2005 .
action
Dear Wendy tells the story of Dick, a young loner who lives in Estherslope , a run-down US mining town . Contrary to the tradition of working underground, Dick works in a supermarket . After the death of his father, he lives alone with his housekeeper Clarabelle. One day she sent him on the birthday of her grandson Sebastian and asks him to buy a present for him. In a small general store he buys a delicate handgun. After Clarabelle says that Sebastian will be happy about this, Dick gives him a book instead, because he doesn't like Sebastian. He wants to give the gun back, which Susan, the shopkeeper, refuses. So he keeps the gun and baptizes it with the name Wendy.
With this new companion, he convinces other outsiders in the small town to found a secret club with him. Among them are Susan, who is teased by the other girls because of her small bust , Stevie, a colleague from the supermarket and the handicapped Huey and his brother Freddie, who serves as a whipping boy for the local youth. The club they call the Dandies is based on a strict code of honor - the principles of pacifism and firearms. From then on, Dick, Stevie, Susan, Freddie and Huey meet regularly in an abandoned tunnel for target practice and discussions. Soon they are staging coat-and-sword games and westerns in specially made costumes.
While sticking to their main rule of never using the gun in public, the Dandies soon find themselves in a predicament and realize that rules are there to be broken. They find a new club member in the young African American Sebastian, who once shot a person in self-defense and is now being released into Dick's care by the local sheriff Krugsby. With his membership conflicts arise about the management of the club. The boundaries between game and reality are blurring, the maxim of pacifism increasingly fades into the background in favor of the passion for the gun, from which the Dandies derive their self-confidence.
To implement their code of honor active they decide, safely Sebastian's grandmother Clara Belle, which has not left the age increasingly paranoid her house for years through the city to their base to escort. This leads to a disaster - in a panic, Clarabelle shoots a police officer. The Dandies flee with her to the clubhouse, where they hide from the advancing state power. Wendy gets into the hands of the police. In a desperate letter to Wendy, Dick writes that if that happens, he will die because of her. Sebastian reads the letter by chance.
When a negotiation with the sheriff fails, they resolutely defend themselves in order to finally escort Clarabelle to her cousin. In the firefight, the dandies are killed one after the other, but Dick manages to get Clarabelle to her destination. Meanwhile, Sebastian has captured Wendy, runs to Dick and complies with Dick's last will by shooting him with her before the police open fire on the house.
History of origin
Dear Wendy was based on an original script by Lars von Triers, who renounced the direction of the film and offered it to his compatriot Thomas Vinterberg, who accepted without looking at the finished script. Von Trier and Vinterberg are among the founders of the Dogma 95 movement, which aimed to achieve a new level of realism in film , for example by doing without common factors such as light, filters or background music . Both had worked together on the Danish two-part TV series D-dag ( 2000 ) and D-dag - Den færdige film ( 2001 ).
Most of the filming took place in Copenhagen . For the underground scenes, they went to the Colliery Haus Aden or the Zeche Fürst Leopold in the Westphalian Ruhr area .
Reviews
- "'Dear Wendy' turns out to be an astute political allegory that has strayed miles from Vinterberg's modern Orestie 'Festen' and from the long-passed 'Dogma' movement ." ( Neue Zürcher Zeitung )
- "The neo-western, peppered with quotes, rather confusing and also dramaturgically weakened by deliberate style breaks, is played convincingly and atmospherically, but ultimately succumbs to the gun euphoria that it ascribes to its young characters." (Lexicon of the international film)
Awards
Thomas Vinterberg's drama, which celebrated its German premiere on August 3, 2005 at the Fantasy Film Festival in Munich , was awarded the prize for best director at the Moscow International Film Festival and was nominated for the best film.
Web links
- Dear Wendy in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Official website for the film
Individual evidence
- ↑ Release certificate for Dear Wendy . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , August 2005 (PDF; test number: 103 021 K).
- ↑ Dear Wendy. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed September 21, 2017 .