Also this issue:

Junk Bonds
In The Safety of Objects, stuff binds people together.
-Cindy Fuchs

Sing a Song of Struggle
Lee Hirsch talks about his 10 years documenting African freedom songs.
-Sam Adams

New

Continuing

Screen Picks
-Sam Adams

Repertory Film

Showtimes

March 6-12, 2003

movies

Dogme Dog

PARALYTIC TONIGHT, DENMARK TOMORROW:

Cecile (Sonja Richter, bottom) steps out on her

paralyzed boyfriend with Niels (Mads Mikkelsen) in

<i>Open Hearts</i>.

PARALYTIC TONIGHT, DENMARK TOMORROW: Cecile (Sonja Richter, bottom) steps out on her paralyzed boyfriend with Niels (Mads Mikkelsen) in Open Hearts.

Open Hearts breaks the vow and twists your arm.

by Sam Adams

Cecilie (Sonja Richter) has this awesome coat. It's brown, mid-calf-length, with fake shearling at the edges and embroidered flowers up the back. It's corduroy, or maybe a velvety something. It's a little hard to tell, because everything in Open Hearts is lit like a public parking garage, and shot on video that turns everything a bit yellowish -- which, incidentally, makes the rough pine floors in her apartment look even better. Cecilie also has a boyfriend, Joachim (Nikolaj Lie Kaas), who gets hit by a car right at the beginning, right after he's proposed, and he's paralyzed for life. But before long, you'll be checking out Cecilie's wardrobe as well.

Directed by Susanne Bier, the Danish Open Hearts purportedly hews to the Dogme "vow of chastity" -- which, on any given movie, tends to mean whatever the director wants it to mean. That Bier breaks a Dogme rule here and there is hardly significant -- the manifesto's authors built in a process where every director admits to the rules she's violated, all but admitting it's impossible to adhere to all of them. But Open Hearts isn't even a Dogme movie in spirit; it's just a clumsy melodrama that also happens to look like shit.

Remember the Dogme proscription against "extraneous action"? Fat chance. Open Hearts has more contrived twists than a water slide. The driver of the car that flattens Joachim, Marie (Paprika Steen, Dogme's leading lady), is married to Niels (Mads Mikkelsen), a doctor at the hospital where Joachim is taken. Partly out of guilt, partly out of boredom, Niels starts spending time with Cecilie, but whether he's comforting her or himself starts to become a bit fuzzy. Before you know it, and certainly before the movie's earned it, the two start playing hide-the-stethoscope, with emotional fallout to follow.

The most notable Dogme violation in Open Hearts gives a clue to why the movie is so insufferable. Though the Dogme rules explicitly prohibit any post-production sound, Open Hearts slathers insipid pop music over a number of scenes, as if Bier simply couldn't wean herself of the desire to tell the audience how to feel. The performances, particularly Steen's, are often better than the movie deserves, but Open Hearts doesn't make good use of them. At least if Hollywood had told this story, you'd have something nice to look at.