DEAR WENDY
Cast: Jamie Bell, Mark Webber, Chris Owen, Bill Pullman...
Director: Thomas Vinterberg
Writer: Lars Von Trier
Review Date: 08/18/05
Written By: suj
The Grade: 8/10
Review Date: 08/18/05
Written By: suj
The Grade: 8/10
THE PLOT_________________
Its a tale of an 18-year-old outsider named Dick, who having recently lost his father, finds comfort and friendship in the unlikely form of a pistol. He forms a gang, the Dandies, whom all name their weapons, but they have sworn never to draw them.
Its a tale of an 18-year-old outsider named Dick, who having recently lost his father, finds comfort and friendship in the unlikely form of a pistol. He forms a gang, the Dandies, whom all name their weapons, but they have sworn never to draw them.
THE REVIEW_________________
A film like "Dear Wendy" is tough to describe. It’s new, yet there is a nostalgic feel to it. It’s both wonderful and confusing. It’s imaginative and at points it borderlines cartoon-ish. Its message is precisely profound but oddly delivered. But if there is one thing that is for certain concerning a film like "Dear Wendy", it’s that I enjoyed it very much.
The film opens with Dick, a teenage boy writing a letter to Wendy and from the yearning and somber tone of his voiceover it would be safe to assume that this Wendy is a girl that he loved and a girl that broke his heart. From that amply beginning one is safe to assume that "Dear Wendy" would be about a tale of teenage love-lost and love-found. And in a way, the film is a kind of love story. We are taken to the first meeting and the early excitement of the romance to the betrayal and painful parting. But Wendy isn’t actually a girl, she's a gun. And with that the film plays like an old school Western with concerns for state-building, law-making and how communities are easily be corruptible, but in a very peculiar sort of way.
"Dear Wendy" takes place in a timeless corner, Electric Park Square, in a nameless American town. Dick, a sensitive loser, is transformed by the purchase of a second-hand gun. His new-found love of firearms has a strange, initially benevolent effect as he soon forms a small, underground group of similar ‘losers’ who meet in an abandon mine and together embrace the technology and power of guns but swear never to brandish them in public. The guns are treated as companions with the idea being that by successfully partnering with their guns they can understand them and, in turn, their guns will be true to them. They'll never misfire, nor see them come to harm. The band of “losers” declare themselves pacificists and call themselves ‘The Dandies’. The growth of their individual identities is one of, if not, the high point of the film. We watch them wallow in rituals, costumes and music (and whiteness a very cool title card/character introductions) to elevate the lives of each of them from the ordinary to the extraordinary. We witness the birth of a modern nation/society.
Acts one and two are all about exposition (like most films); it introduces us to the characters and their situations. We begin to understand them, their beliefs, and what their all about. It’s in the third act where it’s all put into action. The gang sets out on a smilingly good deed that soon becomes the catalyst to their demise. The nature of the end results action is so nonsensical, and the fallout from it so unrealistic, that all sense seems to run away. But what it does do is set up and straddles back to its Western pedigree as we are soon introduced to a good ol’ shootout that pits the gang against the law and their morals. My one grip about this dubious climax, though I did enjoy it all, is that it’s hard to see exactly how we reached this point and why.
"Dear Wendy" is a film that examines many questions like what makes a gun attractive, and the tricky issue of global peacekeeping. While it’s hard to decipher an exact answer from the film, it does do its business of asking and bringing up the questions to a relevant topic. Its guise is under a modern day western that’s whist way in dreamlike atmosphere which makes it all that much more enthralling. Added to the mix is a kick-ass soundtrack and love spouted out towards the underappreciated Zombies which increasingly makes the flick ooze all kinds of cool. And for those who know me, know that I’m a sucker for the voiceover and this film has it in spades. And at the end of the day it’s just a bewildering film that draws you into its metaphors.
The film opens with Dick, a teenage boy writing a letter to Wendy and from the yearning and somber tone of his voiceover it would be safe to assume that this Wendy is a girl that he loved and a girl that broke his heart. From that amply beginning one is safe to assume that "Dear Wendy" would be about a tale of teenage love-lost and love-found. And in a way, the film is a kind of love story. We are taken to the first meeting and the early excitement of the romance to the betrayal and painful parting. But Wendy isn’t actually a girl, she's a gun. And with that the film plays like an old school Western with concerns for state-building, law-making and how communities are easily be corruptible, but in a very peculiar sort of way.
"Dear Wendy" takes place in a timeless corner, Electric Park Square, in a nameless American town. Dick, a sensitive loser, is transformed by the purchase of a second-hand gun. His new-found love of firearms has a strange, initially benevolent effect as he soon forms a small, underground group of similar ‘losers’ who meet in an abandon mine and together embrace the technology and power of guns but swear never to brandish them in public. The guns are treated as companions with the idea being that by successfully partnering with their guns they can understand them and, in turn, their guns will be true to them. They'll never misfire, nor see them come to harm. The band of “losers” declare themselves pacificists and call themselves ‘The Dandies’. The growth of their individual identities is one of, if not, the high point of the film. We watch them wallow in rituals, costumes and music (and whiteness a very cool title card/character introductions) to elevate the lives of each of them from the ordinary to the extraordinary. We witness the birth of a modern nation/society.
Acts one and two are all about exposition (like most films); it introduces us to the characters and their situations. We begin to understand them, their beliefs, and what their all about. It’s in the third act where it’s all put into action. The gang sets out on a smilingly good deed that soon becomes the catalyst to their demise. The nature of the end results action is so nonsensical, and the fallout from it so unrealistic, that all sense seems to run away. But what it does do is set up and straddles back to its Western pedigree as we are soon introduced to a good ol’ shootout that pits the gang against the law and their morals. My one grip about this dubious climax, though I did enjoy it all, is that it’s hard to see exactly how we reached this point and why.
"Dear Wendy" is a film that examines many questions like what makes a gun attractive, and the tricky issue of global peacekeeping. While it’s hard to decipher an exact answer from the film, it does do its business of asking and bringing up the questions to a relevant topic. Its guise is under a modern day western that’s whist way in dreamlike atmosphere which makes it all that much more enthralling. Added to the mix is a kick-ass soundtrack and love spouted out towards the underappreciated Zombies which increasingly makes the flick ooze all kinds of cool. And for those who know me, know that I’m a sucker for the voiceover and this film has it in spades. And at the end of the day it’s just a bewildering film that draws you into its metaphors.
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