According to the Dogme 95 manifesto—a cinematic movement that regards the "instant" more important than the "whole"—the film director refrains from making "art." The medium of film should never record a personal vision (or, worse, a studio vision) but instead should reflect the "instant."

The movement's disparity is this—by consequence, a film becomes the reflection of the individual who pulled the thing off in the first place. No matter what anybody says, the Dogme 95 films are impressions of artists.

But the idea is not steeped in the Cahiers du Cinema theoretical auteurist approach. Where Jean Luc Godard's film "Breathless" may adhere to certain Dogme rules, it is made according to one man's vision. It is that elitist pretense that Dogme attempts to bury.

Dogme 95 could be misconstrued as a theory but, in fact, it's a movement. Developed in in 1995 during a 25 minute meeting between filmmakers Lars von Trier ("Dancer in the Dark", "The Idiots") and Thomas Vinterberg ("FESTEN— The Celebration"), the intent of Dogme 95 was to drive a stake through the heart of movies and replace them with moments.

The key to Dogme 95 is the 10-point Vow of Chastity:

1) Shooting must be done on location
2) The sound must never be done apart from the images
3) The camera must be hand-held
4) The film must be in color
5) Optical work and filters are forbidden
6) The film must not contain superficial action (murders, weapons must not occur)
7) The film must take place in the here and now
8) Genre movies are not acceptable
9) Film format must be Academy 35mm
10) The director must not be credited

According to von Trier and Vinterberg, the supreme goal of Dogme 95 is to "force the truth out of the characters and settings."

Try this. Go to the movies. Pay your 10 bucks. Plop down another 10 spot for refreshments and sit mid-way back and up (if your local megaplex has stadium seating), kick back and watch "Jurassic Park III."

Awesome, no?

On the way home stop by your local video store. Rent "Julien Donkey-Boy" or if they don't have that one, get "Dancer in the Dark." But, ideally, find "Julien Donkey-Boy."

"Julien Donkey-Boy" is registered as Dogme film #6. And it breaks Dogme rules #5 and #6. But that's the beauty of such a "movement"—rules becomes points of damnation once the artist understands them. And, after all, rules are made to shatter.

But, "Julien Donkey-Boy" isn't a genre film whatsoever, and it not only achieves transcendence from the common limitations of film, it also implants/imparts a religious epiphany sorely absent in today's Hollywood grind factory.

In fact, "Julien Donkey-Boy" very nearly exemplifies Paul Schrader's concept on what it takes to reach a transcendental style in cinema. In his 1972 book "Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer," Schrader writes: "Spiritual art must always be in flux because it represents a greater mystery, also in flux, man's relationship to the Holy. In each age the spectator grasps for the special form, that spot on the spectrum which can take him to the greater mystery."

Back in the late '70s Francis Ford Coppola expressed excitement at the dawning of the video age—a new era where everybody can own a camera and make their own movies. Spiritual elevation, now, as we absorb a new millennium, isn't achieved via some Hollywood by-product—it is achieved by, but not limited to, the anti-artist with a camera.

Strange, though. While the Dogme originators make art by denying art they keep movies alive.

But cinema is dead. Remember "Jurassic Park III"?