Low Budget? Yes! Dogme? Eh....

One of the things I love about Independent/ low budget films is that they are often drenched in authorial intent. I really like thinking of films as personal creative visions. Labours of love. Explorational rather than formulaic. Therefore you can understand why the Dogme uncredited director rule really rubs me the wrong way.

I find the Dogme manifesto to be unreasonably restritive. Though I enjoy the intimate feel as well as the emphasis on performance and writing, in a way I find it makes the act of creating and watching a film redundant. Part of the intrigue of film is that it can surpass the inadequacies of live theatre. Why deny film of the magic it is capable of? Is having more than one torch really a bad thing? No matter how many rigid rules and restrictions you put on film making in order to depict ‘truth’, it will always be a depiction. And anyway, I don’t know about everyone else, but surreal escape is appealing to me. Idealistic?….Yes. Do I care?…No.