Dogora - Ouvrons les yeux (2004)

User Rating:

5.5/10   

Director:

Patrice Leconte

Release Date:

10 November 2004 (France)

Genre:

Musical | Documentary

Tagline:

Open your eyes

Runtime:

Brazil:80 min

Country:

France

Language:

None

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Certification:

Hungary:16 | Switzerland:7 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:7 (canton of Vaud)

Company:

Epithète Films

Patrice Leconte's home movies

Robert Altman famously once convinced John Williams to score his home movies: with Dogora it looks like Leconte manage to score the full Bulgarian State Orchestra for his home video of a trip to Cambodia, not to mention a professional cameraman and editor in Jean Marie Dreujou and Joelle Hache. At first sight this appears to be one of those image-driven new age documentaries along the lines of Baraka, but it quickly becomes apparent that this is a film without agenda or even much in the way of basic construction beyond work, travel, sleep and sporadic moments of play: instead, it's an indulgence from a director who finally gets the chance to fulfil his desire to make a film without actors or plot, but purely an impressionistic series of images. Since Leconte has always had a great eye, this is by no means an unpleasant way to spend 80 minutes, although it does show up the limitations of the HD video system it was shot on. While it definitely looks better on the small screen than the big despite its 2.35:1 ratio and has surprisingly rich colour, there's still a lack of depth to extreme long shots and the system doesn't cope well with fast foreground motion at all.

But perhaps the most bizarre thing is Etienne Perruchon's score, which never gets further East than the Caucasus, displaying a surprisingly heavy Russian influence. Even the lyrics, supposedly written in the non-existent language of Dogorien (shouldn't that be Doggerel?) sound at times like a hymn of praise to tractors and the collective farm system. And it seems a horrible misstep to score a sweat shop sequence with upbeat music. Parts of it are very good, but you can't help feeling at times that you're listening to a rejected score from East-West.

The French DVD is unsubtitled, but since the film is entirely dialogue-free that's not a problem.