The one concerted effort to launch a film movement in Europe came from a filmmakers’ collective in Denmark, which unveiled a doctrine called Dogme 95 (Dogma 95) at the Cannes film festival in 1998. The 10 rules of the Dogme manifesto argued against technological gadgetry in cinema and for a straightforward realism in style and content. A leader of the group was Lars von Trier, a Danish director whose films include the English-language Breaking the Waves (1996). The first Dogme work, Festen (1998; The Celebration), directed by Thomas Vinterberg, was well received, and dozens of films were subsequently released under the movement’s banner, including works by American and French directors as well as by Danes. France
In France, cinema remained at the forefront of cultural and intellectual life, and French film and television companies managed to finance a rich and varied group of filmmakers while also helping to support production in such other regions as eastern Europe and Africa. Alain Resnais and Agnès Varda remained active after nearly half a century as directors, and French New Wave figures, including Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Rivette, Claude Chabrol, and Eric Rohmer, continued to make films. In 2001 alone, among the year’s most innovative and challenging films were Rohmer’s L’Anglaise et le duc (The Lady and the Duke), Rivette’s Va savoir (Who Knows?), and Godard’s Éloge de l’amour (In Praise of Love).
New works by mature and emerging French filmmakers played a central role in international art cinema at the turn of the 21st century. A partial list of prominent names, with their films, would include Olivier Assayas, director of L’Eau froide (1994; Cold Water), Irma Vep (1996), and Fin août, début septembre (1998; Late August, Early September); Claire Denis, with Nénette et Boni (1996; Nenette and Boni) and Beau travail (1999; Good Work); Bruno Dumont, who made La Vie de Jésus (1997; The Life of Jesus) and L’Humanité (1999); Catherine Breillat, director of Romance (1999) and Sex Is Comedy (2002); and Raúl Ruiz, who worked in France after going into exile from Chile in 1973, with Trois vies et une seule mort (1996; Three Lives and Only One Death) and Le Temps retrouvé (1999; Time Regained). French-language cinema also saw the emergence in Belgium of the Dardenne brothers, Jean-Pierre and Luc, whose films La Promesse (1996; The Promise), Rosetta (1999), Le Fils (2002; The Son), and L’Enfant (2005; The Child) examined the moral quandaries involved in issues of employment and unemployment in contemporary Europe. Great Britain
After a period in which filmmaking appeared to be subordinated to television production, British cinema experienced a revival in the 1990s. Two major figures whose careers followed this pattern were Mike Leigh and Ken Loach, who began their careers as film directors, worked primarily in television during the 1970s and ’80s, and then resumed film production. Leigh’s works include High Hopes (1988), Life Is Sweet (1991), Naked (1993), Secrets & Lies (1996), and Topsy-Turvy (1999). Loach directed Riff-Raff (1991), Raining Stones (1993), Ladybird Ladybird (1994), Land and Freedom (1995), and My Name Is Joe (1998), among other films, all of which centred on themes of working-class life. Loach set several of his films in Scotland; other works on Scottish subjects included Trainspotting (1996), directed by Danny Boyle, and Lynne Ramsay’s Ratcatcher (1999) and Morvern Callar (2002).
British filmmakers also were active in alternative cinema practices. A founder of the black British Sankofa workshop, Isaac Julien made documentary and fiction films including Looking for Langston (1989), Young Soul Rebels (1991), Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Mask (1996), and BaadAsssss Cinema (2002), the latter a documentary on 1970s American blaxploitation films. Derek Jarman’s films dealt with the subject of male homosexuality; his Blue (1993) was a remarkable work showing only a monochrome blue screen while on the sound track he discussed the failure of his eyesight as a result of AIDS. Eastern Europe and Russia
With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union two years later, the film cultures of Russia and the former Soviet-bloc countries of eastern Europe experienced dramatic transformations. Formerly controlled and supported by the state, film production shifted into private hands. With the boundaries that previously had divided eastern from western Europe now torn down, filmmakers were freed to work where they pleased or where opportunities existed. A prominent example was the Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski, who in 1991 made La Double Vie de Véronique (The Double Life of Veronique), which suggested a mysterious symmetry between two women, one living in Poland and the other in France. Kieslowski shifted his filmmaking work to France, where he made the important Trois couleurs (“Three Colours”) trilogy—Bleu (1993; Blue), Rouge (1994; Red), and Blanc (1994; White)—before his death in 1996.
Krzysztof Kieślowski on the set of Blue (1993).Miramax/The Kobal Collection
In Russia a significant figure to emerge was Aleksandr Sokurov, whose early films had been “shelved,” or prohibited from public screening, until 1987. Sokurov’s first film to be widely seen internationally was Mat’ i syn (1997; Mother and Son). In 2002 he made Russki kovcheg (Russian Ark), a 96-minute tour of the Hermitage museum in St. Petersburg, in a single take without cuts, the longest Steadicam shot ever recorded. Aleksey Balabanov directed both crime dramas—Brat (1997; Brother) and a sequel, Brat II (2000; Brother II)—and meditative historical works, including Pro ourodov I lioudiei (1998; Of Freaks and Men).