jmabel

The apocalyptic comedy "Dogma" is not a consistent film. Like Álex de la Iglesia's "Day of the Beast", it starts off strong, but fades. While it maintains full speed very far into the film, the apocalyptic ending plays like (dare I say it) something out of "Clerks". But it is still worth watching.

Unlike intellectual ex-Protestants, who typically become simply secular, most intellectual ex-Catholics still feel the need to grapple with a rich maze of doctrine and dogma. (Besides "Day of the Beast", the same phenomenon can be observed in Godard's "Hail Mary"). Although a few random non-Catholic elements find their way into "Dogma" (a muse, the name "Loki"), it is a very Catholic film, little though the church will like it. Whereas Samuel Jackson's Vengeful God in "Pulp Fiction" is doubtless a Protestant God or perhaps an Old Testament God, part of the fun of "Dogma" is that is supposes an unquestionably Catholic God, then sneaks in Alanis Morisette at the end to portray a God totally unrecognizable to the Catholic tradition.

I like the idea of there being multiple factions in the fight between Heaven and Hell, an Azrael rebelling against even Lucifer, amoral angels walking the earth mired in the technicalities of dogma, seeking loopholes in doctrine, messing with the natives for lack of any other way to pass the time.

The film is visually well conceived (if never riveting - perfectly good to catch this on video), the acting is generally good (although Salma Hayek's acting falls rather short of her beauty), there are enough twists and turns to keep any but the most hyperactive mind paying attention, and (rather unusually for an American movie) it actually expects its audience to know something and to be paying attention.

I liked this film a great deal. Medem is a wonderful director, who can take you for more of a ride with plot alone than most other directors can do with special effects: keep your brain in high gear to follow this story.

Among other twists, we are left to wonder just how much is Angel's hallucination and how much is really occurring. The only fault I can find with the film is that this is not left even more open: I'd rather not know that there is any particular reason to doubt Angel's sanity.

I loved the notion of an exterminator (named Angel, no less) sent to kill off an epidemic of burrowing insects that change the flavor of the local wine, even though he rather likes the altered taste, as do at least some of the locals. I also felt that the theme of a man being drawn carnally to one woman and equally strongly (but less physically) to another, while it has been explored often -- too often -- has seldom been explored better or in a manner more appropriate to the cinema.

Settle back with a glass of Rioja and watch it. Maybe twice.