Pacifists with guns ring a number of Bells (Dear Wendy (DVD))

Name: Ailran

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Product:	Dear Wendy (DVD)
Date:	05/04/06 (132 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great acting, thought provoking story.

Disadvantages: nothing worth mentioning

Dear Wendy is the latest film from Lars Von Trier (Dancer in the Dark, Dogville), though this time he is only writing and not involved in the direction. This being left to his fellow Dogme compatriot, Thomas Vinterberg

Dear Wendy gets its name from its opening scene, where we see Dick (Jamie Bell, ‘Billy Elliott’) writing a letter to Wendy from prison. A letter explaining how he misses her and then explaining how everything went wrong.

We then fade out and flashback in time to a curious small American town, there is very little there and very little to do. There is little for Dick and his friends to do to keep them occupied.

Bored Dick sets up a little group with some of his friends. They meet in an abandoned factory, in the basement, and become ‘The Dandies’. They decide they will be pacifists, but pacifists who carry guns! They will never use them and even have a rule declaring that they should ‘never show off their partner, whatever the provocation’. Their partner is what they call their guns, and they even give them name, guns that are all a little bit different than normal everyday pistols, for example one of them has an old WWII German revolver.
They decorate their ‘hideout’ and practice with their guns.
Only when Dick is asked to mentor a young man, the grandson of his old nanny, by the sheriff (Bill Pullman, Independence Day, Igby Goes Down) do the group dynamics start to alter and the ideals of the group being to alter.

Lars Von Trier doesn’t like America, his film before this one Dogville made this apparent if you didn’t already know this. Maybe it is his fear of flying that exaggerates his thoughts of the US as he will never actually visit the country or its people. Dear Wendy is almost certainly his damning indictment of America’s gun culture. Its focus is on the guns and how the characters love them, having them in their hands and practising with them. Having the guns gives them a sense of power and identity, even if they never actually appear in public with them.

Also like Dogville Dear Wendy is set in a weird microcosm of an American small town. At least it has actual buildings unlike Dogville, but the town seems to have a small centre, and that is it. Kind of like the centre of the town in Back to The Future but smaller, less impressive and very downbeat. Everything revolves around this small area and The Dandies ‘hideout’.

To enhance the oddness of the whole film/world The Dandies dress like…… well Dandies… they wear kerchiefs and waistcoats, old style hats and stand out a mile when they come out of the basement. The costumers must have had a ball coming up with the very individual styles each of the Dandies had, pulling clothing from different eras to create a mish mash style that just increases the feelings of alienation you know they all feel amongst their peers. They are the ones made fun of at school, they are the geeks, the nerds or whatever word you want to use to describe them. They take their feelings of being different and enhance it with their look.

The Dandies are about friendship and comradeship. They learn about the guns, watching movies on firearm injuries to remind themselves to remind themselves of the damage their guns could cause if they ever broke their golden rule about never brandishing them. They each learn a gun skill, to be individuals. One becomes a sharpshooter, another learns about angles and bouncing bullets of things to hit hidden target and another learns to shoot by instinct. Their club is fun, an escape from reality but will it remain as innocent as they would like when it intersects with the real life of the town?

Dear Wendy is an unusual film, through most of it it is like a coming of age drama, but you always feels there is going to be a darker edge to it. Something is going to happen but you are not sure what, even so when the story changes it still catches you totally by surprise, shocked at what suddenly just occurred in front of your eyes. It turns from a good film to an excellent one, especially if you are someone who likes to see something a bit different from the average Hollywood film.

Jamie Bell is the star of the film but all the young actors are good, putting in performances that manage to make you understand how they must feel in this small town. It is not an easy thing to do but they all accomplish it with ease, and the nature of the film means that if they hadn’t the whole film could have fallen flat on its face. Without all the main characters being at the top of their game Dear Wendy could have been a real mess.

Certificate 15

It is certainly a film worth watching, I really enjoyed it at the time and came out discussing it like crazy with the friend I dragged to see it. Even though I am not quite sure why I enjoyed it so much now, while writing this! It doesn’t seem to have much to it, but maybe that is it. The overall effect of the film is to pull you into this weird little place, to draw you into the lives of the characters and that is what makes you like the film. I’m certainly going to have to see this again and I don’t say that very often!

Summary: A thoroughly enjoyable film with a nice dark edge to it!