For reasons that I can’t always articulate, Rachel Getting Married is heavenly to me. So imperfect that it’s perfect. So brutal that it’s beautiful…These are just a few of the conflicting phrases that come to mind when I watch this movie. I’d like to think that any complaint you might have about the film, I could find a reason to say: “Yeah, but THAT’S what’s so great about it!” Try me.
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I watched it for the umpteenth time with my mother one night. The film deals with – to say the least – family troubles, so I thought she would appreciate it, or at least find it moving. Though she sat through the movie patiently, her final thoughts were: “It was just…weird. It made me uncomfortable.”
And really, that’s what’s so great about it. It’s uncomfortable. It’s so honest and anti-what-we-think-a-movie-should-be that it makes us uncomfortable. A majority of the people I know described the first thirty minutes as “slow…and weird…not a lot happens.” This is also (see, I told you I could do it) another reason why it’s great. Director Jonathan Demme takes the audience completely out of its element by making it feel as though you’re not even watching a movie, but rather, you’re watching all of these lives take place. And they’re laid out just as they are – all the fighting, the ugliness, the lack of communication, the resentment, and everything else that most families don’t want you to see. (Because that would be…uncomfortable.)
I read that Demme confessed somewhere that Rachel Getting Married was filmed with Dogme 95 in mind. For those who don’t know, Dogme 95 is – in short – a film movement initiated by Danish filmmakers Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg in 1995, with the intentions of stripping films of their “Hollywood.” (You can read the official rules here.)
By its very nature, filmmaking is a deceptive and artificial process. And I don’t even mean in terms of story or characters – just the basics: lighting, sound, special effects, etc. These are some of the very things that von Trier and Vinterberg wanted to eliminate with the Dogme 95 movement. And why? To focus on one thing only: the story.
Thus, if you watch accredited Dogme 95 works, you’ll see that they’re very raw-looking. Jerky camera movements because it’s all hand-held, and no special lighting or fancy effects. But you can say one thing about them (or, most of them, since I’m personally not a fan of whatever “Julien Donkey Boy” is, for instance): You’re completely involved in the story and its characters.
Rachel Getting Married reminds me of an upscale Dogme 95 movie. They have a better camera, awesome set design and locations, and more well-known and acclaimed actors. But that doesn’t mean the essence of Dogme 95′s honesty isn’t there. There’s not much artificial lighting, most of it (if not all) appears to be hand-held camera, and overall the main focus is on the story and the characters. Not much else.
And both the story and the characters are heartbreaking, imperfect, conflicting, and contradictory. But they’re real. My favorite scene in Rachel Getting Married is when Anne Hathaway’s character, Kym, is spilling her guts out to her family. Kym made a horrible mistake that tore her family apart a few years ago, and she can’t seem to make anything right, or apologize enough. She asks, “Who do I have to be now?” This quote keeps popping into my head as I write this. Because what does film have to be now? What more can it be?
I believe we’re at a place in film where everything has been done. So many limits in technology, effects, and plots have been breached that maybe we can’t take it anymore. We still want creativity and entertainment, but maybe we want those things on smaller scales and budgets, and within realms that we recognize as our own. Maybe we want movies that don’t feel like movies, but like real life instead.
The mainstream public might not have noticed it ten years ago, but I think the Dogme 95 creators were really on to something here.
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You should say something about Jenny Lumet, who wrote the film, as well! To me, the writing is what really set the film apart, mostly because it was so natural. The dialogue was so perfect in its realness. It was ugly and often sparse and completely natural to hear. Like you said, watching “Rachel Getting Married” doesn’t feel like watching a movie. I think the dialogue has a lot to do with that. It really is like just watching people exist, bearing witness to life as it is happening.
I was focusing on more of the aesthetic, and thought about bringing up the writing, but I was more on a roll with the future of film/Dogme 95 thing. But yes, you are completely right! I adore the writing of the film as well, and it would NOT be the same kind of movie without this script.
Not to sound overly feminist here, but I really believe this and have said before: “A man could’ve never written this script.” Meaning, you need a woman’s insight to delve into the relationship and characteristics of these two sisters – the way they talk, how they resent yet still love one another, etc. Again, not to be biased, but I think that a woman’s voice for the script is the reason why we have such small, brilliant details – the dishwasher scene comes to mind right now when I write this.
So yes, round of applause for Jenny Lumet too. Because no film could come alive so realistically if it weren’t for the right kind of script that gets that across in dialogue and description of action.
Hahaha, I guess you would know why I would focus on the writing.
And like you said, Jenny did a great job of demonstrating the dynamic between two sisters. I think that was another reason why I loved it so much: the scenes felt like they were taken straight from my life (And when I say scenes, I mean the dialogue, the biting, underhand comments, the eye rolls, as well as the gossiping, like in the beginning of the picture. I loved that part in the beginning when Kym talked about how skinny Rachel was. My sister and I say things like that all the time (I usually say: “I’m jealous…What have you NOT been eating?”)
Haha, no, trust me, I’m a little embarrassed that I didn’t mention it now…seeing as how I call myself a “Screenwriter” and all…
Instead of ‘Rachel Getting Married’ they should have called it, ‘Being dragged to a wedding where you don’t know anyone and your date is in the wedding party so you have to spend the better part of the weekend wandering around through a stranger’s house, aimlessly: The Movie’
Demme is a man who I really, truly admire on a technical level, but damn if I wasn’t violently annoyed by every single person . . . no, thing in this movie. I can totally understand that these people are meant to be ugly, to have rough edges -just like real people. But I almost found it to be so insistent on creating this faux reality that it felt like some sort of emotional 3D, where things awkwardly come at you to remind you of how real this all is. (The never ending toasts immediately spring to mind.)
If anything, I think this movie proves that there needs to be some form of theatrical sheen as a buffer between an audience and the movie.
On the plus side, Mare Antoinette is in my que per your write-up.
Haha, fair enough. Can’t convince ‘em all.
And though I love the movie, I CAN see how someone could find it annoying…the one part where the two sisters reminisce about some kid from their childhood on the bed when they first meet up – strikes me as true, but slightly annoys me?
At any rate, I can understand that, though I will continue to promote the film! And let me know what you think of Marie Antoinette!…I’m curious.
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