First and foremost, ‘Dear Wendy’ is a stylish and scathing jab at the American gun culture and a blistering condemnation of American law enforcement. Filmmakers Von Trier and Vinterberg often show their repulsion/fascination with the US in their films. Von Trier has never been stateside, so presumably, this fascination is fed by newsreels, anecdotes and pop culture.
‘Dear Wendy’ is a little bit Rodney King, a lot Waco
Jamie Bell is the gifted British actor dancer who played the title role in the delightful musical ‘Billy Elliott’. And he’s all grown up. Now twenty, Bell plays orphaned teen Dick Dandelion in ‘Dear Wendy. He’s an idealistic mining town boy who is too sensitive to mine, in this jaw-dropping coming of age story.
Destined to work in low paying clerk jobs due to his allergy to mining, Dick dreams big dreams of saving the world. Despite his certain bleak future in the unnamed town, he knows there is grand future. He is a devoted pacifist.
There’s another sensitive boy in town, named Stevie, who is a pacifist with a deep love of guns.
They gather up fellow Losers of Electric Park, and invite them to join their pacifist gang ‘The Dandies’. They hold meetings in an abandoned mineshaft where a strict gun code is established and a course of study and ceremony is lovingly adhered to. Each dandy names his gun – Dick’s is Wendy. He dedicates himself to her as a lover would.
The more closely he follows the regulations, the more enchanted he becomes – he has created a perfect world.
But there are limitations, guns can be carried but not drawn. They can be admired and even worshipped but they can’t be fired outside the mineshaft.
One day the credulous local sheriff (Pullman) drops by with a young kid named Sebastian in tow, who is on probation for murder. ‘I blew a guy away, but it wasn’t my fault!’ The sheriff asks Dick to take him in and be a good role model.
Dick jumps at the chance to test his theories. He will make a Dandy out of a non-Dandy person, a pacifist out of a murderer.
Sebastian’s first day with the Dandies is a strange one- they’re working on their gun ‘florets’ in full regalia of turbans, puffy shirts and flowing robes. Sebastian is told if he becomes a dandy and learns to respect guns, he can have one, despite the fact he’s on probation.
But then Sebastian goes and falls in love with Wendy and at this point, things rev up considerably, if always poetically.
‘Dear Wendy’ re-visits our secret, dramatic childhood rituals and the bonds developed between secret keepers. Codes of honor, learning rules that are meaningful and contained with a group of like minded comrades. It’s about the heartache of learning that optimism is easily destroyed by authority figures. It’s a harsh and lurid lesson here.
‘Dear Wendy’ appears to be set in the 60’s as the soundtrack is heavy on The Zombies. The tiny town is never named, but appears to be in Pennsylvania, Minnesota or Sudbury mining country. In fact, the film was shot in an abandoned military base in Denmark. But as Von Trier demonstrates, the violence is clearly meant to be right in the center of the American heart.
DVD release is set for USA release March 21, 2006.
In Canadian theaters February 26, 2006
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