Kevin Smith Tackles Religion Thoughtfully? Well, Dogma Cats!

The first time I saw "Dogma" I was put off by the endless explanations of Catholic… well… dogma. Director/screenwriter Kevin Smith knew that the subject matter he was tackling would go over the heads of his audience if not adequately explained (ideas such as plenary indulgence, the last scion, or the Metatron are not part of the popular dialogue). He did a good job tackling these ideas, only the explanation tended to drag down the rest of the movie. And it left little room for character development (Linda Fiorentino spends most of the movie's first half saying "I don't understand" to either Alan Rickman or Chris Rock). Upon viewing the film a second time, being more comfortable with the material myself, I was able to relax and enjoy the jokes Smith placed within those explanations, and go along for the ride with his well-plotted and superbly structured story. Further to this, those performances that felt stilted and stale behind the veil of explanation are now fresh and vibrant. I didn't appreciate the work of Fiorentino, Rock, Jason Lee, Salma Hayek, or Ben Affleck the first time around. Now I see that they are a uniformly solid ensemble. Couple this with the standout performance of Mr. Rickman, a playful but malevolent Matt Damon, and a beatific Alanis Morrissette, and Smith seems to have found the perfect cast of characters.

"Dogma" is a big movie with a big brain that it's not afraid to use, a Smith trademark. This may come as a surprise to those who know Smith as a (self-admitted) purveyor of dick and fart jokes. Don't worry, the auteur has not turned his back on his bread and butter. The bathroom humour runs wild and free here. But it's not bathroom humour for the sake of bathroom humour. This is seen most clearly in the famous and much reviled Golgothan S**t-Demon scene. It exists not just as an excuse to dress up a man in a poo suit, but actually makes sense given the universe of the film.

Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Smith) do more here than in any previous Smith film. They come to the story early on, stay until the end, and carry much of the film's comedy. Jay is his usual motormouth self, only his ribald banter is consistently funnier than in any previous films. Silent Bob is once again 99% silent, taking a couple of occasions to save the day (without the clumsiness he displayed in "Mallrats"). And in one heartbreaking scene near the end, Smith, a self-confessed non-actor, actually wrings some true pain and sadness without resorting to weepy hysterics. A good job.

As for the film's supposed anti-religious angle, anyone that pays attention to the ideas being presented will know that couldn't be further from the truth. The only religion that gets condemned is the kind that's organized. Smith is more concerned with a return to faith, in whatever form that it may take. It attacks belief, which is cold and unyielding and harmful to those who don't share it, in favour of ideas, which can respond to most any human situation. Smith deserves credit in that he has made a movie that gave me, a self-styled lapsed Jew and agnostic, cause to question my beliefs. And I think that was Smith’s goal in the first place

Besides taking on organized religion, "Dogma" is also -- in many of the film’s aside lines -- a loving tribute to movies and how they can affect our consciousness, a noble ideal that this film strides towards and succeeds. If film is the new religion in our liberal culture, then "Dogma" would make fine scripture.

NOTES ON THE SPECIAL EDITION DVD

Since commentary tracks are the most important feature, to me, of any DVD, and since this is my first time listening to one (well, two here) of Kevin Smith's legendary commentary tracks, let me get right at it.

Messrs. Smith, Affleck, Mewes, Lee, Mosier, and Pereira appear on the first track. The Jays, Mewes and Lee, don't contribute all that much; the former adds a spaced-out comment or two, but only when prompted, giving cause for the others to ridicule his grammar; the latter only pipes up to ask director Smith a technical question once in a while. Vinnie Pereira, who is described as View Askew's resident historian, is proven negligent on several occasions, for not knowing some detail or another. Which, to me, proves that he's probably right most of the time, and only got called on it while the audience was in the room, for the purpose of some good-natured ridicule. Scott Mosier, producer and second unit director, answers any and all technical questions that Smith can't, and takes some all-in-good-fun flak for his cameo in the film, a scene on the bus where he's asked to make-out with his girlfriend. Ben Affleck, far and away the biggest star in the room, is both incredibly articulate on why he's proud of the movie and his role in it, and good-natured at being the butt of many of his lesser-known cohorts' jokes. Kevin Smith, writer/director, is funny and forthcoming with his feelings about the movie. He doesn't shy away from the on-set conflict between Linda Fiorentino and himself, he's outspoken about the undue criticism the film received, and he's self-deprecating when talking about his skills (or lack thereof) as a director and his reliance on toilet humour in his writings. The track is fun and funny, like listening to a bunch of guys at a bar on a particularly witty and combative night. It's not afraid to go off-topic (at one point a discussion breaks out on the sex-lives of the participants during the making of the movie!), but still manages to cram in more behind the scenes information than most commentary tracks I've heard.

The second commentary track features only Smith, Mosier, and Pereira, and was included because the first track was so jokey and off-topic at times. Smith and Co. wanted to at least appear like real filmmakers who knew what they were doing. So they try and talk about aspect ratios, and film stock, and optical transfers, etc. Which is all well and good, but they also joke around enough to make this track interesting in its own right, while still being funny for non-techno geeks.

Besides the two commentary tracks, the 2 DVD set holds a number of other fine features.

Included in the package's liner notes is a lengthy and finely written essay by Smith, which details how and (more importantly) why he made this film. In it, he lays his soul bare, giving up his love for God, and his desire to honour Him (or Her) with an intelligent movie that the masses will see. The only way to do that, he reasons, is by lacing the theologically motivated story with "dick and fart jokes". A job well done, Kev.

Disc two has over 100 minutes of deleted scenes that prove why they were deleted. They are often ponderous, and would have been detrimental to the narrative, even while fleshing out each character's backstory. The interesting part about this feature is that each scene is introduced by Pereira and an increasingly larger contingent of the Smith clan, beginning with just Kevin, then him and his daughter, then him and his daughter and his wife, and finally him and his "other" son, Jason Mewes. It's kind of cute to see Kevin, a self-described raunchmeister, in the company of his wholesome family.

The outtakes section was a disappointment. With over 3.5 hours of usable footage, you'd think the produces would have been able to cobble together more than 13 minutes of crack-ups and muggings. But they haven't. Pity.

Overall, the DVD is a fine package. Two minor quibbles: the opening sequence, which plays while the disc loads, was funny the first time. But it's too long. It became annoying when every time I put the DVD in this drawn out joke had to play. Also, when transferring between features, a short condemnation, presumably riffing on the grief the film got from the Catholic League, appears, telling the audience that they're probably going to burn for watching the movie. I appreciate the irony, but not every time I wanted to turn the subtitles on. This got tiresome pretty quickly, too. But besides those two points, "Dogma" is presented in all its splendor, deservedly so.