How a Danish romantic comedy broke the strict rules of Dogme 95 filmmaking
In short: Søren Kragh-Jacobsen’s 1999 film Mifune was a massive success, but it arrived with a public confession. As the third entry in the Dogme 95 movement, the director had to admit to several transgressions against the group's rigid Vow of Chastity, from using hydraulic platforms to chasing local hens.
Dogme 95 was a collective movement defined by a strict set of rules intended to strip filmmaking down to its essentials. Directors were expected to avoid artificial lighting, props, and special effects. However, Kragh-Jacobsen’s Mifune, a romantic comedy about a man returning to his family farm on the island of Lolland to care for his brother, struggled to adhere to these constraints. The film’s title itself is a dual homage: it references the legendary Japanese actor Toshiro Mifune, whom the protagonist imitates to entertain his brother, and Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson’s 1870 poem, Last Song.
Despite the film’s status as an international blockbuster and its win of the Silver Bear – Special Jury Prize at the 49th Berlin International Film Festival, Kragh-Jacobsen felt compelled to issue a formal confession. He admitted to several breaches of the Vow of Chastity, including moving furniture for aesthetic reasons, using a black drape to manipulate light, and even incorporating a photographic image of an old lady simply as a personal whim. He also confessed to using a hydraulic platform to capture two bird's-eye shots, a clear violation of the movement's focus on natural, handheld cinematography.
Interestingly, the Dogme 95 group still approved Mifune as an official work. Kragh-Jacobsen argued that while he committed several 'moral breaches,' only one was a genuine technical violation of the rules. This tension between the movement's purist philosophy and the practical realities of production is exactly what Roger Ebert highlighted, calling the film the 'least dogmatic' of the Dogme 95 entries. While it was Denmark’s submission for the 72nd Academy Awards, it failed to secure a nomination, yet it remains a landmark in Danish cinema, boasting 351,000 admissions in its home country.
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- Summary by Intellect · source: Mifune (film)
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