A Vow of Chastity
From Copenhagen to Chaos: How Danish Minimalism Inspired My Wanderlust
The Dogme 95 movement, spearheaded by Danish filmmakers Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg, issued its radical Vow of Chastity in 1995 as a manifesto against the growing artifice in cinema. It demanded a return to raw storytelling, stripped of special effects, artificial lighting, and conventional aesthetics. By embracing this discipline, Dogme 95 aimed to foreground the honesty of narrative, the authenticity of character, and the immediacy of the human condition.
For This is Now, the influence of the Vow of Chastity is both conceptual and practical. Its ethos resonates in our rejection of overproduced, expectation-laden travel media. Much like Dogme filmmakers let go of cinematic control to uncover a deeper truth, we lean into the uncertainty of real-world encounters and spontaneous dérives. By sidestepping the spectacle and embracing the marginal, This is Now seeks a similar authenticity—an unvarnished intimacy with the overlooked beauty of the everyday.
The parallels are clear: just as Dogme 95 dismantled film conventions to restore the primacy of story and performance, This is Now dismantles travel clichés to find deeper engagement with place and people. It’s not about the polished destination; it’s about the human moment unfolding when all pretense is abandoned.