It's All About Love : Director's Statement – Thomas Vinterberg


Back in 1995, a fellow director and I founded a movement called Dogme 95. One of the fundamental ideas behind the movement was to establish a set of rules that prevented us from using the more conventional filmmaking tools like artificial light, make up, special effects etc. Artistically it was a very exhilarating process.

It's All About Love is not a Dogme film. I'm no longer following the rules set in the "vow of chastity". On the contrary, I have done everything I could to make It's All About Love a contrast to Dogme 95, and my last film Festen (The Celebration).

It's All About Love is my attempt to avoid repetition, to take another artistic risk, to explore new territory.

It's All About Love is the world seen through my eyes, and those of the co-writer Mogens Rukov. It's the result of how life has affected us in a period of great change.

Through my eyes, the world is my wife, and my two daughters wearing pink dresses and ice skates.

It is newspaper articles about chunks of ice falling from the sky. It's September 11th. It's floods in central Europe. It's people lying in the streets. But it's also airports, friendly assistants, people in love, and people on cell phones.

And Mogens Rukov is back, with his cigarettes, his strong coffee, his brilliant theories about everything, his thoughts about the Millennium, and in the film he is "The Man in the Plane".

In my life, there is a large entertainment industry, a few good friends, and a family that I often miss very much.

Somehow it's all in the film. But there is much more as well, including a song for instance. There's an excellent song that Mogens and I wrote. It is in Latin, and just as there are 7 days in the film, there are 7 words in the song. .. Here they are:

Ira Dei
Chaos Mundi
Homo Querem
Amorem

Then of course there is a story - you know, a plot, a dramatic chain of events. But in a way that's less interesting. I suppose the plot is only there to translate our thoughts.

But anyway, there is a plot about this couple in the middle of a divorce. Slowly they realize that they can't live without each other, but it's too late. They should have stayed together.

It's All About Love is set in New York in the future. I think writing about the future helped us to describe today, our fascination with modern life and our concern as well. No, fascination is better. Let's be open to the future.

I think there is a genre too. Mogens has called it "a dream". I know a dream is not a genre. But yes, you can regard this film as a dream.

I think It's All About Love is a fairy tale, a fairy tale of life, seen through my eyes.



Thomas Vinterberg, October 2002

Author : Nimbus Film International