Underdogme05 Presents Underdogville, Denmark

Since Lars Von Trier, from what I've heard, has never actually set foot in America and yet sees to it to make films that profess to know our dark underbelly far more than we could ourselves (Dogville, and the new Dear Wendy, for starters), I've decided that perhaps I should write a script about the dark underbelly of Denmark, a country I've never been to, either, but have read a lot about.

I can be very critical of my own country, especially those administering it (and sometimes those voting for those administering it), but I've also lived here my whole life - and even then won't even pretend to know every angle of all its complexities and varieties. But I'm bored with all that.  Therefore, I'm the perfect candidate to write a film about Denmark and the Danish people's slightly decadent hedonism.

My new script is tentatively entitled Underdogville and is set in a fictional but all-encompassing Danish town represented by the main characters, who are all drugged-out pastry-eaters.

Note: I haven't yet seen the Von Triers-scripted Dear Wendy (his colleague Thomas Vinterberg directed it), which is set in a nameless (and "timeless") American town among a gang of youthful misfits who love guns and have a strict code of honor - but have read some reviews about it, and thus, without seeing it, I will write a review of it here soon. If I can find time between gun practice and acting nihilistically towards my ignorant neighbors.

Note II, or, rebuttal to myself: Okay, I know that America's is a much more widely diffused culture than Denmark's, or anywhere else for that matter, dominating the landscape still today (though perhaps less than we'd like to believe), and Von Triers himself has defended his examinations of America thusly: "America is sitting on our world. I am making films that have to do with America [because] 60% of my life is America. So I am in fact an American, but I can't go there to vote, I can't change anything. I am an American, so that is why I make films about America." [Cannes, 2005] With the current political climate surrounding our government's misbegotten war in Iraq, this defense seems fairly reasonable.

Still, there's something incredibly arrogant and pretentious about his efforts to cover America that are worsened when the details and psyche are both so inaccurately portrayed. So I'm less offended by the attempt than by the results. But again, should see Dear Wendy before I continue on this thread. Or maybe I shouldn't! Nyah.

Shouldn't it be someone like me, so angry at this country's abandonment of its poor in times of crises (see: Hurricanes Katrina and Rita), for example, who should be making these sort of films and not detached judgementalists like Von Trier?

Comments

[David Noel Bourke]

Hey Craig!

Just came across your blog/post on Mr Lars VT by accident while surfing the
web.

...not too familar with
these blogs...but want to say first agree with you about LVT. Overated and
overexposed.

Actually I live in Denmark, but not Danish born, I was born in Ireland. I'm a
filmaker and have made your Danish movie already! It uncovers the underbelly of
Copenhagen, and it wasn't exactly welcomed with warm, open arms here in
Denmark.

The movie is called LAST EXIT, it's a psychological thriller, that deals with
poverty, drugs, family violence, crime, abductions, and prostition all in the
copenhagen area. It will be released in the US on DVD by the cult label Heretic
Films on November 15th 2005.
Read more here about the movie here: www.LastExitProductions.dk

Anyway, thought it was a funny coincidence. It would be really great, if you
could put a little comment on LAST EXIT on your site, just for perspective - LVT
gets enough exposure, both negative and positive, us little fish are brushed to
the side always...

Thanks and keep up the good work!

Sincerely,
David Noel Bourke