(2005, 100 min) To begin, the Wendy referred to in the title is a gun. Tackling the same subject as Michael Moore’s Bowling for Columbine, Thomas Vinterberg (The Celebration) and Lars von Trier (Dogville, Dancer in the Dark) reflect upon America’s dark obsession with firearms. Where Moore gave us a skewered documentary-style take on the subject, Vinterberg and von Trier look through a lens with semi-naturalism and sarcastic sentimentality. Dick Dandelion (Jamie Bell) is a self- proclaimed loser in a small fictional mining town somewhere in America. His friend Stevie (Mark Webber) informs him that the small 6.65 revolver in his possession is real, not a toy. Thus begins an odyssey only the von Trier penned script could imagine.
Dick decides to start a club based on the love for and a fetishistic obsession with “partners” (guns). The world is confined to a place in town known as Electric Park, similar to the stylized diagram of “Our Town” envisioned in Dogville. The club, known as the Dandies, engages in ritualized behavior in an abandoned underground mine shaft known as the Temple. They have target practice, dress up in antique clothes, and listen to nothing but the Zombies. One day, their insular world changes forever. The town is policed by Sheriff Krugsby (Bill Pullman), another man who loves his gun.
Commenting in a writer’s interview, von Trier insists he writes this tale without a moral in mind and we believe him. Vinterberg adds that he wanted to bring realism to the project, which he does in a detached, European style. Constructed as a sound stage in Denmark, Electric Park is the center of a perverse universe in which its inhabitants find sensual pleasure in shooting a gun. These professed losers called themselves “pacifists with guns,” a not too subtle reflection of the young adults in America. Dear Wendy comments on the gun culture here, the post-adolescent search for identity, racism, and the politics of various codes of conduct instituted by society. This is a powerful, relevant cinematic event.
© TLA Entertainment Group
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