Lovers - Dogma # 5

Colour, 35mm
France, 1999, 100 min
Section: Jean-Marc Barr

Synopsis

Jeanne, an assistant at a small book shop in Paris, makes the acquaintance of the bohemian Yugoslav artist Dragan. To the foreigner’s surprise, she invites him on a date. She tells him that she is getting over a relationship and that she has no intention of getting serious with anyone else, she just wants to enjoy herself. However, she soon forgets her resolution. The couple become inseparable and fall deeply and passionately in love. Dragan, however, is detained by the French police: it turns out that he is in the country illegally. He has to leave France and his beloved Jeanne within three days. Even though he does not comply with the law and remains with his lover, in the end their parting is inevitable. From a formal point of view, this intimate love story from contemporary Paris is a minimalistic study of the relationship between two people of different character and cultural background which, from the initial spontaneous enchantment, undergoes a series of dramatic changes. This first part of the “freedom trilogy” treats the theme of the spontaneity of love. More broadly speaking, however, it points to the barriers in interpersonal communication and the way in which they have been surmounted, and the borders of freedom for the individual and a divided Europe. The film was the fifth to acquire the Dogma 95 certificate (and the first film made as part of this manifesto outside Denmark).