Welcome to the Dollhouse
The all-female primitive post-punk band Gashrat, offers two films forming part of its cinephilic imagination: a legendary concert film and a non-idyllic ode to puberty.
Adolescence is a thankless time, and 12-year-old Dawn Wiener is learning this the hard way. She's the school's whipping boy, and her family life isn't easy either. Welcome to the Dollhouse is a gritty drama-comedy as only Solondz can make them.
Todd Solondz
Born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1959, Todd Solondz quickly developed a style of gritty social satire. His second feature, Welcome to the Dollhouse, won the Grand Prize at the Sundance Film Festival. His next film, Happiness, was selected for Cannes' Quinzaine des cinéastes and won the FIPRESCI prize. Solondz's approach to the subject of paedophilia in Happiness (1998) caused a major controversy, with the film's original distributor going so far as to renounce its rights. In 2009, the director signed a sequel to Happiness entitled Life During Wartime. Presented in competition at Venice, the film won the prize for best screenplay.
Meanwhile, Solondz directed Storytelling (2001), selected in the Un certain regard section at Cannes, as well as Palindromes (2004), presented in official competition at Venice. Dark Horse (2011) was also launched at the Venice Film Festival, while Wiener-Dog (2016), inspired by Robert Bresson's Au hasard Balthazar, had its first public screening at Sundance. For example, characters from Welcome to the Dollhouse can be found in both Life During Wartime and Wiener-Dog. The suburbs of New Jersey are at the heart of all his films, which tackle disturbing themes: pedophilia, incest, suicide, rape...
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Gashrat's cinephile picks
In addition to their concert at the Cinémathèque this Thursday, January 25, punk band Gashrat are gracing us with a carte blanche of two films: The Last Waltz by Martin Scorsese and Welcome to the Dollhouse by Todd Solondz. Musician Kelly Hurcomb was kind enough to answer a few questions from this angle of cinephilia.
