Still, he returned for the 2005 festival with his third film, Dear Wendy, in which he directed a von Trier screenplay about Americans and their firearms, starring Jamie Bell (Billy Elliot) as a teenager who writes a love letter to his gun.
There's an old maxim, "write what you know."
See, that's the thing--this movie's not about "America's gun culture," one of the most peaceable and rational demographic subsets on the planet. It's about an imaginary misfit--and one dreamed up in the prejudiced, neurotic fantasies of a snotty Danish elitist, at that.
Here's something else I can't help notice--the Danes publish some Muhammad cartoons and the whole Islamic world goes apeshit. They release a film calculated to provoke and enrage gun owners, and we not only have to inform each other it exists via minor blogs--but I don't see us rioting and torching, issuing death warrants and killing people.
Most of us just won't go see the movie--not that it looks like it has mass appeal, anyway. If we react at all, it will be to remark on the foolishness of the filmmakers.
Is that your best "shot" guys?
Yawn.
I do have a few more questions for our artsy, disdainful detractors, though. How long did it take the Nazis to conquer and occupy Denmark? Why didn't the same thing happen to Switzerland? What effect do you think the absence or presence of a "gun culture" had on the different outcomes?
After reading an outline of "Dear Wendy", I had to conclude that the author hadn't the foggiest notion what the hell he was talking about.
ReplyDeleteCritique of a "gun culture" that is primarily a work of the author's fantasy is sort of like critiquing the culture of Micronesia based on the insights gained from reading the Swiss Family Robinson.
Wind, noise, significance zero.
So - this maroon hasn't actually ever been to the U.S.A., but he's seen enough movies to know what it's all about.
ReplyDeleteAnd someone, somewhere actually takes this nut seriously?
Hey - - I saw a movie somewhere, sometime, about some Scandinavians who beat the brains out of little fur seals. So I know everything I need to know about this guy.
When he and his neighbors aren't beating the brains out of fur seal pups, or getting pounded on vodka, they're drawing and publishing really bad cartoons depicting Mohammed in a really insulting manner.
I now know enough from TV and film to understand everything about Denmark. They are ALL drunken boorish louts, who club fur seals to death and insult other people's religions.
Fact Check--Denmark's decision to capitulate to Hitler was an option the King took, and in a few respects was a fairly smart move (flat terrain, surrounded on water by three sides, making them vulnerable to land and naval attack, as opposed the the terrain that made Switzerland better suited for defense). Because they didn't put up a big fight, Hitler didn't focus too much on security for that region, and consequently, gave them a lot of leeway. This helped them smuggle out 95% of their Jews to Sweden.
ReplyDeleteI don't know what would have happened if the Danish had taken up the option to resist with arms. They may have held Hitler off enough, they may have been demolished. But what they've done, they've done.
Still, your point about European attitudes to American gun ownership isn't off base. All the same, I'd see the movie myself before taking a Canadian's review on a matter dealing with guns too seriously.
Thing is, Hatter, Swiss terrain notwithstanding, if the country had not had a "gun culture" it could have been invaded--but Hitler knew every Swiss citizen had a rifle and training--and orders from the top to defend where they stood.
ReplyDeleteAttitude means a lot. When asked by a visiting German general how Switzerland could hope to resist if Germany attacked, since the German army was twice as large as the entire Swiss poplulation, a Swiss sergeant replied "We should each have to shoot twice."
ReplyDeleteThe Swiss were and are proud of their markmanship and universal proficiency at arms.