Dogma brothers: Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg

This chapter argues that the significance and impact of Dogma 95 goes much further than questions of ‘national’ cinema. As a filmmaking agenda it is indeed pioneering and empowering for minor cinemas and the cinemas of small nations, but this also makes it a prime example of a broader, transnational phenomenon of ‘new punk cinema’. Viewed in terms of a punk aesthetic, the apparent contradictions between Dogma's rule-making and rule-breaking begin to make sense, especially in the work of the movement's two main founders, Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg. Punk logic is what best encapsulates their ethos, if not the movement as a whole. The chapter presents case studies of their work following a general discussion of Dogma's punk idiom.