The Anti-dogma of the 00's

Let us begin by commenting/replying to Dogme95's Manifesto,  for it was its reading that triggered our anti-dogma:

(Brown letters are quoted from Dogme95's official website)

DOGME 95 has the expressed goal of countering “certain tendencies” in the cinema today.
DOGME 95 is a rescue action!
In 1960 enough was enough! The movie was dead and called for resurrection. The goal was correct but the means were not! The new wave proved to be a ripple that washed ashore and turned to muck.
Slogans of individualism and freedom created works for a while, but no changes. The wave was up for grabs, like the directors themselves. The wave was never stronger than the men behind it. The anti-bourgeois cinema itself became bourgeois, because the foundations upon which its theories were based was the bourgeois perception of art. The auteur concept was bourgeois romanticism from the very start and thereby ... false!

Bourgeois?? In the 00's? Are there people still expecting the revolution of the proletariat?

To DOGME 95 cinema is not individual!

What exactly would be the moral advantage of the collective?

Today a technological storm is raging, the result of which will be the ultimate democratisation of the cinema. For the first time, anyone can make movies.

Great!

But the more accessible the media becomes, the more important the avant-garde, It is no accident that the phrase “avant-garde” has military connotations. Discipline is the answer ... we must put our films into uniform, because the individual film will be decadent by definition!

Discipline sucks! The military sucks even more, including all its connotations.
Individual creations are the basis of art in the 00's, but if you want to create (or recreate) with others, no problem.

DOGME 95 counters the individual film by the principle of presenting an indisputable set of rules known as THE VOW OF CHASTITY.
In 1960 enough was enough! The movie had been cosmeticised to death, they said; yet since then the use of cosmetics has exploded.

Cosmetics come from awareness of the aesthetic sphere, which is gaining force and will probably become a reference for all others (moral, epistemic, religious...) in the 00's. Why? It is more advanced (and more beautiful). That said, we do not recognize a distinction between cosmetics and the 'real' thing; all is real, and all is cosmetic (some better, some worse, depending on whatever criterions).

The “supreme” task of the decadent film-makers is to fool the audience. Is that what we are so proud of? Yes! Fool me as much as possible please, take me away as far as you can with your freeest imagination. Leave it to me (if at all) to judge what is true or not in that voyage. How pretentious and paternalistic to claim authority to reveal the truth to the audience. What is the Truth, by the way, what a pity you didn't write it down in your manifesto once and for all.   Is that what the “100 years” have brought us? Illusions via which emotions can be communicated? How ingenious! ... By the individual artist’s free choice of trickery? 'trickery'? what is that? please use as much trickery as you wish, as long as, in your opinion, it benefits the work of art. What matters is the end result, not the means (as long as you don't kill or bother anyone, of course, but fortunately, that goes without saying in the aesthetic realm of the 00's). Predictability (dramaturgy) has become the golden calf around which we dance. Having the characters’ inner lives justify the plot is too complicated, and not “high art”. As never before, the superficial action and the superficial movie are receiving all the praise. Indeed the 00s seem to be the time to explore the superficial, the surface, the ephemeral. Is it better than exploring the deepness? No, but it isn't worse either. It simply seems to be the area in turn for these times to explore. It fits very well with its name actually, the 00s, the no-value, no-substance. What will we find in the surface? No one knows, let's explore! What shall we explore in the 10's? Will the pendulum draw us back to substance? We'll see then, but in the meantime, let's not pass our time looking at, or yearning for, some other time. The result is barren. An illusion of pathos and an illusion of love. To DOGME 95 the movie is not illusion! What is it then? objective revelation? Today a technological storm is raging of which the result is the elevation of cosmetics to God. By using new technology anyone at any time can wash the last grains of truth away in the deadly embrace of sensation. The illusions are everything the movie can hide behind. Yes! Let me be deadly embraced by sensation!
		Dogme 95's Vow of Chastity: "I swear to submit to the following set of rules drawn up and confirmed by DOGME 95: 1. Shooting must be done on location. Props and sets must not be brought in (if a particular prop is necessary for the story, a location must be chosen where this prop is to be found). 2. The sound must never be produced apart from the images or vice versa. (Music must not be used unless it occurs where the scene is being shot). 3. The camera must be hand-held. Any movement or immobility attainable in the hand is permitted. (The film must not take place where the camera is standing; shooting must take place where the film takes place). 4. The film must be in colour. Special lighting is not acceptable. (If there is too little light for exposure the scene must be cut or a single lamp be attached to the camera). 5. Optical work and filters are forbidden. 6. The film must not contain superficial action. (Murders, weapons, etc. must not occur.) 7. Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden. (That is to say that the film takes place here and now.) 8. Genre movies are not acceptable. 9. The film format must be Academy 35 mm. 10. The director must not be credited. Furthermore I swear as a director to refrain from personal taste! I am no longer an artist. I swear to refrain from creating a "work", as I regard the instant as more important than the whole. My supreme goal is to force the truth out of my characters and settings. I swear to do so by all the means available and at the cost of any good taste and any aesthetic considerations. Thus I make my VOW OF CHASTITY." Copenhagen, Monday 13 March 1995 On behalf of DOGME 95 Lars von Trier Thomas Vinterberg

DOGME 95 counters the film of illusion by the presentation of an indisputable set of rules known as THE VOW OF CHASTITY.

It happens to be the case that we also have a set of rules for making films and art that we would like to set forth, we call it the Antidogma of the 00s:

It was triggered as a reply to the dogma 95 manifesto, but not in favor of the classic or Hollywood cinema practices, but in favor of the real democratization of art made possible by technology, and against the praise of effort, technique, professionalism, consciousness, seriousness, the great masters, the golden years, planning, organization, division of tasks, etc. still prevalent, to some extent, in today’s culture and academies. In exchange we propose an approach based on fun, humor, accident, spontaneity, laziness and freedom. One in which it is more important to cultivate your self, than to train your skills or work very hard (Para hacer, ser). 
Could it work? Could great things be created under its rules? We wonder ourselves; but if it does, then we might need to seriously reconsider the moral values under which we conduct our lives and educate future generations.

(All rules should be interpreted freely by the user)

1. Only consumer equipment can be used

2. No hard-learning techniques or skills should be used.

3. It should be achieved without much effort, work, time or budget.

4. Artifice, tricks, effects, illusions are all valid.

5. There is no orthography or grammar that needs to be respected  

6. If you can't explain it, that's good.

The work will be judged solely by the impression it leaves on the spectator and the forces or messages it generates on her.

We do not proclaim this to be the only or best way to do art. We simply want to test weather anyone, without much strain, could create excellence.

Z.A.                               
México DF / Tel-Aviv / New York / Barcelona 
March 2002