Movie Review: The House That Jack Built

The House That Jack Built *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Lars von Trier.

Written by: Lars von Trier and Jenle Hallund.

Starring: Matt Dillon (Jack), Bruno Ganz (Verge), Uma Thurman (Lady 1), Siobhan Fallon Hogan (Lady 2), Sofie Gråbøl (Lady 3), Riley Keough (Simple), Jeremy Davies (Al), Ed Speleers (Ed - Police officer 2), David Bailie (S.P.), Cohen Day (George), Rocco Day (Grumpy), Robert G. Slade (Rob). 

 

It’s really saying something to note that in a year where we finally saw Orson Welles’ final vision in The Other Side of the Wind, a film where Welles undeniably is interrogating himself as a filmmaker, that Lars von Trier’s The House That Jack Built is the film most closely connected to its creators in its willingness to interrogate the man who made it. The film is two-and-a-half hours of Von Trier responding to his critic’s claims of his misanthropy and misogyny, basically by proving them right. He is deliberately trying to be provocative here – and your mileage will vary on how much of this you’re willing to sit through. The film is full of violence against women and children – all of it hard to watch – as well as long conversations comparing artists to murderers, some of which is insightful, and some of which sounds like an insufferable undergrad who goes on long rants in class as the rest of the class either rolls their eyes, or fall asleep. This isn’t a great film by Von Trier – a director who has undeniable made some great films – Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark, Dogville, Antichrist, Nymphomaniac, the first half of Melancholia – but it is something to behold. It is almost as if Von Trier is saying to his critics that while they may hate him, he hates himself even more. After all, by the end of the film, his surrogate is literally in hell.

 

That surrogate is Jack (Matt Dillon), a prolific serial killer, who is telling his story to Verge (Bruno Ganz – a faceless voice until the epilogue of the film) about five of his killings. He has so little regard for his victims that they are never given names – except for one, who he has dubbed Simple, because that is precisely how he sees her. So there is the first lady, played by Uma Thurman, who Jack picks up on the side of the road when she gets a flat tire, and her Jack breaks. He drives her to a repair shop, back to her car, and is driving her back again, when tired of her screeching into his ear, joking that he is a serial killer, and laughing about that because he’s obviously too weak to be that, he smashes the jack into her face. He kills another woman by strangling her in her room, he takes a woman and her two young sons on a hunting trip, and then uses them as the game. The most infamous sequence has to do with Simple, of course, a woman he was involved with romantically, before the extended torture sequence which involves him cutting off her breasts. It was at this point at Cannes that many who made it that far had had enough, and walked out. But Von Trier just keeps on going and going and going. We only see a few of Jack’s crimes – but we see the bodies of his victims, which he keeps stacked up in a walk in freezer – and will occasionally move them around, the photograph them in weird positions. Jack is a failed architect, and the title seems to be about the house he always wanted to build – that he planned for years – but the last act, he literally does build a house out of those bodies – and then walks through to hell.

 

What you make of the film is up to you. I cannot tell you to sit through the film and its violence because the payoff is something terribly profound, because to be frank, it isn’t. If you don’t want to put yourself through all of that vile violence, fair enough – it is hard to take. It’s also hard to take the endless conversations between Jack and Verge – which most often plays over images of historical atrocities – although in one telling sequence, it’s over clips of Von Trier’s other films. As with the violence, Von Trier repeats himself again and again in this dialogue, belaboring his point. You may disagree with his ideas about art, and the similarities between artists and murderers, but at least some of it is interesting to listen to. Much of it isn’t though.

 

In a way, simply by watching the film, you make Von Trier into the winner here. Much like Jack, as he details his thoughts to Verge, he isn’t actually trying to convince you of anything – he just doesn’t want to be ignored. This not really a film where Von Trier bandies about ideas as much as one where he talks to you directly, and you have to sit there and take it. And then take it some more.

 

And if all that sounds insufferable to you, then you shouldn’t see The House That Jack Built – although, you probably already know that since you’ve probably never much liked Von Trier – a completely valid stance, as he is at times too much to take. For me, as a fan of Von Trier, I found much of it fascinating and sad and infuriating and repulsive and vile. The filmmaking is at times among the best things Von Trier has ever put on screen – the epilogue in hell is visually stunning. I cannot tell you to watch The House That Jack Built – most audiences will either be repulsed or bored (or, more likely, both) by the film. And it certainly isn’t the film to watch if you’ve never seen a Von Trier film before. But if you’ve made it this far in the review, and you want to see it – then go ahead. It is everything that people who hated it said it was – it’s also everything that people who loved it said it was.

Movie Review: Nymphomaniac Volume II

Nymphomaniac Volume II
Directed by: Lars von Trier.
Written by: Lars von Trier.
Starring: Charlotte Gainsbourg (Joe), Stellan Skarsgård (Seligman), Shia LaBeouf (Jerôme), Jamie Bell (K), Mia Goth (P), Willem Dafoe (L), Stacy Martin (Young Joe), Christian Slater (Joe's Father), Kate Ashfield (Therapist), Udo Kier (The Waiter), Caroline Goodall (Psychologist).
 

After the first two hours of Lars von Trier’s epic Nymphomaniac, I said I was still trying to wrap my head around his film – wondering aloud where the film was going and stating that if Von Trier stuck the landing, he may have made his masterpiece, but if he didn’t, the film could still be considered a disappointment. Now that I’ve seen the other half of the film – I have to say, I’m still trying to wrap my ahead around it. It isn’t Von Trier’s masterpiece – take your pick from Dancer in the Dark or Dogville for that – but I think it may just be a great film in its own way. Von Trier never wanted the film split in two (there’s even a disclaimer at the front of the two films stating as much) – but while the two halves certainly add up to a great whole than they are individually, there is also an obvious tonal difference between the two. Nymphomaniac Volume I, despite some very heavy moments, was also quite comedic at times. Other than a very early scene in Volume II – where two African brothers debate, in a language Joe (now played by fulltime Charlotte Gainsbourg) doesn’t understand, which one gets to put his penis where – while their large erections bobbing in front of Joe’s face – there is very little in Nymphomaniac Volume II one could classify as funny.

The first film is about Joe chasing the high of her early sexual experiences – seen in Volume II as a religious experience as Joe achieves orgasm by herself alone in a field and begins to float – and having fun doing it. The cliffhanger that ended Volume I – where Joe loses the ability to feel anything during sex anymore – is what runs through Volume II – as Joe tries any and everything to regain that feeling. First, it’s just with Jerome (Shia LaBeouf), the lunk head she cannot simply dismiss like the rest of her lovers – as the two, now living in domestic non-bliss, and raising a child, fuck every chance they get – Joe hoping he can fuck the feeling back into her – and then it’s other men as well. Much of the first hour of Volume II has Joe becoming addicted to her afternoon S&M rituals with K (Jamie Bell), who lays out specific ground rules for their sessions – telling her they will never have sex, but she must except willing to his total domination. K whips her with a riding crop as she’s strapped to a couch – or will punch her in the face when and if he wants. There is no safe word, so she cannot back out once they get started. The second hour of Volume II has Joe moving away from that – and starting her own business, as a collector for the mob – which here is represented by one man, L (Willem Dafoe). It turns out she’s good at this work – she is able to read and manipulate men. There is a powerful, extended sequence where Joe lays bare one man’s sexual identity in front of him – perhaps even he didn’t know what he was – and then Joe provides a way to relieve his own shame. Through all of Volume II Seligman (Stellan Skarsgard) pops up – though less often than in Volume I – as Joe continues to tell the man who has knowledge of everything but doesn’t truly understand any of it. He knows everything about religion, but has no faith. He knows all about sex, but early in Volume II, he confirms what many probably deduced from Volume I – he has no actual experience with it. From that moment on, the ending of the movie pretty much becomes unavoidable – especially since this is a von Trier film. Joe is another of his wounded female martyrs, excepting abuse from the male dominated world in the hopes of achieving a form of transcendence. Since Von Trier starting his cycle of films in this vein – in Breaking the Waves in 1996 – the female characters have certainly evolved. Whereas Emily Watson in that film and Bjork in Dancer in the Dark ultimately accept their fate, Nicole Kidman in Dogville and Gainsbourg in Antichrist eventually fight back. Joe here has something in common with both – accepting what she must from Jerome, but not for Seligman.

To a certain extent, one can say Von Trier has been making the same film over and over again. There are certainly references in Nymphomaniac to his previous films – he pretty much entirely recreates the opening scene from Antichrist in Volume II – with (thankfully) a different result. And Stellan Skarsgard’s Seligman is similar to Paul Bettany in Dogville – a man who thinks he is above the rest of the men in the heroine’s life, who turns out to be worse than all of them – because at least the rest of them don’t pretend to understand them. The final scene in Nymphomaniac makes it pretty clear that even though Seligman has listened to Joe’s entire life story - expressed sympathy and support at times, analysis at others – he doesn’t understand anything that she has said – not really anyway.

Like all of Von Trier’s films, Nymphomaniac is at times funny, at times provocative and at times disturbing. Von Trier is not a subtle filmmaker and at times his films can become endurance tests – to see how much misery the audience can stomach. In this way, I think the two week break I had between Volume I and Volume II helped a little bit. I was amazed at how quickly I was able to sink back into Von Trier’s world. Like most of his films, he gets fiercely committed performances from his actors. Gainsbourg is once again game from anything he throws at her – and he seems to want to push her further each time out to see how far she’s willing to go and so far, he hasn’t given her anything that she’s not willing or able to pull off. It’s another brilliant performance by her. Skarsgard is also wonderful as Seligman – another horribly unflattering character by him for Von Trier of masculinity. In Volume II, Jamie Bell is also great as K – who is so seemingly polite even while he dregs up the violence from inside him, and Mia Goth – who plays Joe’s “protégé”, is good enough that I wanted her character to be fleshed out some more.

Von Trier wants to provoke his audience – and he certainly does in Nymphomaniac. The film has generated a lot of press – although if that will turn into monetary returns, I don’t know. Some may be curious about all the sex in the film – but as anyone who knows Von Trier could attest even before seeing this one, the sex in the movie is not erotic. In no way, shape or form is the movie pornographic. Ultimately, I think Nymphomaniac is a mostly brilliant movie – one that pushes the audiences buttons. It’s certainly not a movie I’m going to stop thinking about anytime soon – Volume I swam through my head for two weeks, and Volume II is still there days later. It’s not an easy film – and I do think Von Trier tries to stuff too much into it, even at four hours long. But it’s a film that will stay with you – no matter if you love or hate it.

Movie Review: Nymphomaniac: Volume I

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Movie Review: Melancholia

Melancholia ****

Directed by: Lars von Trier

Written by: Lars von Trier.

Starring: Kirsten Dunst (Justine), Charlotte Gainsbourg (Claire), Kiefer Sutherland (John), John Hurt (Dexter), Stellan Skarsgaard (Jack), Alexander Skarsgard (Michael), Charlotte Rampling (Gaby), Brady Corbet (Tim), Udo Kier (Wedding Planner), Cameron Spurr (Leo).

Lars von Trier has been very open with the fact that he has been depressed for much of his adult life. He has even gone as far as to say he prefers depression to what came before – anxiety – because when he was anxious all the time, it was like being on adrenaline, but while you’re depressed, you’ve essentially given up and can at least relax. His new film, Melancholia, seems to split these two disorders – depression and anxiety – into two sisters, who in the films two halves deal with two different crises. The first half, entitled Justine, is about the title character’s wedding, although she is too depressed to enjoy it, and will eventually snap. The second half, entitled Claire, is about that title characters anxiety over the impending doom of planet earth, that may or may not be hit by the passing planet Melancholia. It’s quite clear where Trier’s sympathies lie though – with Justine, the depressed sister, as even in what is supposed to be Claire’s segment, Justine has the biggest impact on the audience. She’s more prepared for the end of the world than anybody – because she quite simply, doesn’t give a shit.

The movie opens with a striking series of images, some still, some in slow motion, that function as the movie’s prologue – much like the juxtaposition of Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg having sex with their baby falling to her death worked as the prologue to Trier’s previous film, Antichrist. These images mainly focus on Kirsten Dunst’s Justine in a series of images that let us know something is not right in the world – images of birds falling from the sky all around her, fire and brimstone. You know the world is ending long before anyone in the movie actually openly says anything about it.

The first half of the movie is about Justine’s wedding day – specifically the party that follows the wedding. She and her husband Michael (Alexander Skarsgaard) show up to the party two hours late, and although he talks in clichés like “I’m the luckiest man in the world” and “This is the happiest day of our lives”, it’s quite clear that for Justine, the wedding party is little more than a chore. She keeps disappearing from the party for unexplained absences – madly rearranging art books in the library, to lie down and not come back. The pressure put on her is too much for her to bare – from her boss pestering her about a tag line for an upcoming project (they work in advertising), to her mother’s (Charlotte Rampling) cruel speech denouncing love and marriage, to her father’s (John Hurt) doddering and careless thoughtlessness. And mostly because of her sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) anxiousness and Claire’s husband, John (Kiefer Sutherland) talking about how much everything cost him, Justine finally snaps. In two short scenes, she alienates her boss and her husband, who has finally had enough and simply leaves her.

This segment has had some critics comparing Melancholia to Tomas Vinterberg’s The Celebration (Vinterberg is after all a Trier acolyte), and while there are some similarities (they are both about dark secrets coming out at what should be a happy celebration). Both films fit easily into the “dysfunctional family” subgenre of films. But I think they differ as well. While the other characters in Melancholia are sketched in broader strokes, Dunst’s Justine is perhaps the most realized character in any Trier film. This is a portrait of depression that doesn’t elicit our sympathy, but shows depression for what it really is – massive self involvement. It’s certainly possible to watch Melancholia, and see Justine’s family and friends around her, and realize how and why she is so depressed, and yet still think that she is just as bad as anyone at the wedding. To Dunst’s credit, she doesn’t shy away from her characters depression, herself involvement, or her rage when she finally snaps, but clearly embraces it. This is a daring portrait of depression – one of the best I’ve seen in a movie in a long time.

The second half of the movie is not quite as strong as the first. Set on the rich, isolated estate owned by John and Claire, it involves them, along with their son Leo and Justine in the days leading up to when Melancholia either will or will not crash into earth, destroying everyone. John is a rationalist, saying that the scientists agree it will pass on by, and it’s clear that Trier holds him in contempt – both for his rationality and his capitalist greed. Claire is supposedly the star of this segment of the film, and much of it is spent with her as she worries about the impending doom. Justine spends much of the first part of this segment nearly catatonic – her depression has worsened to the point where she can no longer function on her own. But as it becomes clearer that the end of the world really is nigh, Justine really does take center stage again. While Claire worries, and rages against the dying of the light as it were, Justine is more than capable of embracing it. Who else but the suicidally depressed are truly ready for the end of the world? This part isn’t as strong, because I don’t think Trier truly gets inside of Claire’s head – he sees her worry as slightly pathetic, and embraces Justine’s cynicism instead. Gainsbourg, a great actress, salvages Claire with her performances, but it’s quite clear that Dunst and her Justine are still the star. When the end comes, in a bang, it’s one of the best climaxes in recent memory.

Personally I think Lars von Trier is at the most interesting phase of his career right now. After his first films, that were heavy on style, and less so on substance (The Element of Crime, Europa), he rejected that and went with his Dogme 95 style of filmmaking, seen in various incarnations in Breaking the Weaves, The Idiots (his worst film) and Dancer in the Dark (which contrasted that Dogme realism with Hollywood style musical numbers). Rejecting that aesthetic as well, he went minimalist with nothing more than chalk outlines on a black soundstage in Dogville (still my favorite of his films) and it’s less successful, but still underrated sequel Manderlay. Along the way, he made a few experiments in what it means to direct (The Five Obstructions and The Boss of It All) that were mainly interesting failures. But now with Antichrist and Melancholia, I think he has captured the whole package. Both films are expertly crafted, with style to spare, but all that style matches the dark subject matter. The critics who think Trier is a misogynist aren’t paying attention, as Charlotte Gainsbourg’s character in Antichrist and Kirsten Dunst’s character here, are clearly the most fully realized, daring characters that Trier has ever created. It’s a shame that Lars won’t shut up at times, because when he opens his mouth, he mainly does a disservice to his films. And that’s too bad because Melancholia, like Antichrist, is one of his best.

The Best Films I've Never Seen Before: Europa (1991)

Europa (1991) ****

Directed by: Lars von Trier.

Written by: Lars von Trier & Niels Vørsel.

Starring: Jean-Marc Barr (Leopold Kessler), Barbara Sukowa (Katharina Hartmann), Udo Kier (Lawrence Hartmann), Ernst-Hugo Järegård (Uncle Kessler), Erik Mørk (Pater), Jørgen Reenberg (Max Hartmann), Henning Jensen (Siggy), Eddie Constantine (Colonel Harris), Max von Sydow (Narrator).

I am of two minds on Lars von Trier. On one hand, he is one of the most daring, innovative and ingenious filmmakers of his generation. No matter what one thinks of films like Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark, Dogville or Antichrist, you cannot really remain neutral on them. He forces audiences to think, and react, and shoves his style down your throat for you to choke on. Personally, I have loved most of his films (I could have done without The Idiots and The Boss of It All, but other than that, it is a solid filmography), but I completely understand why people hate them. On the other hand, Lars von Trier seems like a spoiled child, who simply wants to piss people off. There is a certain degree of this in his films, but it is much more prevalent in his media interviews. The famed director has recently proclaimed “persona non grata” at the Cannes Film Festival (where he has debuted almost all of his film since his debut in 1984 – The Element of Crime) because he expressed sympathy for Hitler and proclaimed himself a Nazi. Now, if you actually read what he said, you’ll probably come to the same conclusion that I did – that this was just a poor joke gone horribly awry, but this is in essence what Trier has done his whole career – say incredibly stupid things. He’s like Sacha Baron Cohen playing Borat, or Joaquin Phoenix playing himself, except he lives like this all the time. You cannot take anything the man says seriously – even about his own films, because often what he says about them, and what’s onscreen is completely opposite of each other. The man simply enjoys pissing people off. This was true even in 1991, when the young filmmaker’s Europa won three prizes at the Cannes Film Festival – the Technical Grand Prize, Best Artistic Contribution and the Jury Prize (which is essentially third in the festival, losing the Palme to the Coen’s Barton Fink). So incensed was he that he did not win the Palme, that his acceptance speech was to give the jury the finger, and storm out of the awards ceremony. So when judging the work of Lars von Trier, I think it is necessary to separate the artist from the art – much like one has to do with Roman Polanski. Think Lars von Trier is a spoiled child or an asshole all you want, but I prefer to judge his work by what he puts on the screen, not on what he says at press conferences.

Europa is the most stylized of all of Trier’s films. The film is the complete opposite of the Dogme 95 films that he became known for later in the 1990s (and that thankfully, he has left behind as he went as far with them as he could). The film is hyper stylized, switching between color and black and white (often in the same scene), and using rear projection in some truly unique, innovative ways. The film is like an old Hitchcock movie, crossed with Franz Kafka – a surreal, paranoid thriller set just after WWII, in Germany where an idealistic young American, Leopold (Jean-Marc Barr) comes to Germany to show its people “a little kindness”. He takes a job as a sleeping car conductor on the Zentropa rail line  - the same rail line that was used to shuttle Jews to Concentration Camps during the war – and quickly gets in over his head. He meets, and falls in love with Katharina Hartmann (Barbara Sukowa), the daughter of the owner of the Zentropa railway. She seduces him, and soon after they are married, he becomes unwittingly involved with a pro-Nazi conspiracy, that aims to destroy the recently restored peace.

The storyline of Europa is purposely complex and confusing. People come in and out of the plot at various times, for various reasons, that serve to muddle the goings on. On one level, the film is very much inspired by the old Hitchcock movies, where a seemingly innocent man gets caught over his head. On another, the film is certainly inspired by Kafka – as seen in scenes involving Leopold’s hapless uncle, and the men who have come to give Leopold his “test” to end his probationary period. Comedy and tragedy are hand in hand here.

But, this being a Trier film, the morals are more complex than that. By the end of the film, when everything comes out, Leopold is accused of being the worst of anyone in the film – either pro-Nazi or anti-Nazi. “But I haven’t done anything!” he complains, and is told “Exactly”. Leopold has sat out the war, and is now sitting out its aftermath, trying to make everyone happy, be everyone’s friend, and in doing so is worse than anyone else. At least they all believe in SOMETHING.

Yet for me, when I think back on Europa, what I remember most are the visuals. They are intricate and complex, every shot visually fascinating and interesting. You could get lost in the visuals of the film, and simply sit back and ignore the plot and marvel at what exactly Trier has put on the screen. Trier’s first film The Element of Crime was a similar visual extraganza, but this one brings it to the next level.

Perhaps that is why Trier soon abandoned this hyper stylized work for the Dogme movement, and why, he abandoned the Dogme movement later on as well, and why after two films shot on an empty soundstage, he moved back to more traditional filmmaking with Antichrist, and supposedly his latest film Melancholia. Trier seems to like experimenting with his films, but eventually, he gets bored and moves on – trying to find another challenge for himself. I like the fact that Trier reinvents himself as a visual filmmaker every few years, even as his films remain thematically all part of a series – a progression. He is one of the most interesting filmmakers anywhere in the world right now. Yes, he’s an asshole. But then lots of people who are far less talented than he is are as well. Perhaps the price we have to pay for his films, is to listen to the man speak.

Movie Review: Antichrist

Antichrist ****
Directed By: Lars von Trier.
Written By: Lars von Trier.
Starring: Willem Dafoe (He), Charlotte Gainsbourg (She).

I am not sure why Lars von Trier dedicated his new film Antichrist to Andrei Tarkovsky, that wonderfully weird, religiously rigid Russian filmmaker, when the film is so clearly inspired by a Scandinavian like von Trier, Ingmar Bergman. Maybe it’s more gamesmanship by the eccentric von Trier, a brilliant director that you can never trust when he speaks. He is a provocateur, both in his films and in interviews, but I don’t think he is entirely sincere when he speaks about his own work, and what is on screen, and what he describes, are obviously different. Like other celebrity directors, like Quentin Tarantino, von Trier seems trapped by the persona he has set up for himself, and feels the need to justify his reputation. And when he makes a film as “scandalous” as Antichrist, and is confronted by a hostile press at the Cannes film festival, I don’t think he can help himself.

Perhaps it would be best to start out this review by telling you to forget everything that you have heard about Antichrist in the past few months since it debuted at Cannes. All the hype about how this is the most violent, shocking film in history is complete bullshit. There is hardly any violence in the movie at all – it is nearly all in the film’s final act, and it is not nearly as graphic as you have been led to believe. What’s more, the film earns its violent conclusion – in fact it demands it – because of everything that has come before the finale. Von Trier is using the basic structure of a martial drama from Ingmar Bergman, and incorporating elements of pornography and the horror film to it. While it is not a film everyone will like – in fact many will loathe it – it is a film that demands to be seen and debated in a serious way.

The film has one of the best opening of any this year (in fact, had it not been for the marvelous opening scene of Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds, it would easily be the best). A married couple is fucking (and that course word is the correct one) up against their washing machine as the clothes spin around behind them. The scene is graphic, but it’s appropriate for what it going on. Their fucking is intercut with their baby waking up in his room, getting out of his crib and walking over to the window to look at the falling snow. His teddy bear goes out the window, and the baby soon follows, crashing down to the cold, icy streets below, where he is killed. The sequence is shot in stark black and white, and is a masterpiece of film construction – with the rising and falling of the fucking couple, the snow, the laundry and the baby all treated in the same way. The family in effect becomes humanity entire in this sequence.

After this sequence, we get the first of four chapters – grief and we learn more about the couple. She (Charlotte Gainsbourg) has fallen into a deep grief following the death of their child, and has needed to hospitalized and medicated to get through the day. He (Willem Dafoe) is a therapist, and believes that he can help her more than her doctors can, and takes her home, and subjects her to rigorous therapy to try and get to the root of her fears. When he discovers that nature – specially their cabin the woods, named not coincidentally Eden – is what she is scared of, he takes her there, and forces her to confront her fears.

As with many of his films, von Trier portrays the male authority figure in the movie as a spineless, gutless, clueless hypocrite. She doesn’t need a therapist – or making accurately doesn’t need him to be her therapist – she needs him to be her husband. And yet, she still tries to do what he wants her to do. He pushes her farther and farther, and when she seems to be cured, it still isn’t enough for him. He has his own grief process to get through, and if he cannot control hers, then he is going to have to confront it. Not only that, but he knows things about that last summer that She and their baby spent together in Eden that she does not know. At some point in their “therapy” it becomes less about curing her, and more about punishing her.

It’s in these scenes, where the similarities between von Trier and Bergman are most pronounced. In many ways, the first two acts of von Trier’s movie is similar to one of those Bergman martial movies, where the couple fights each other in an isolated place. Think Through a Glass Darkly, minus the brother and the father, or Persona, if the you substitute a husband for one of the women. Von Trier is, if anything, an even more gifted visual filmmaker than Bergman, and the movie has many striking images of these two bodies at war with each other. The most iconic image of the film has She, after she tries to seduce He, run out into the forest and starting to furiously masturbate, before he comes along and the two fuck up against a tree as hands reach out for them from the roots. It is a haunting image.

It’s in the last act where von Trier takes the film to a new level, and it’s this last act that garners all the attention when the film is discussed (now would be the time to stop reading if you don’t want to know what happens). She again tries to seduce He, and fails. She becomes convinced that he is going to leave her, and smashes his testicles with a block of wood. Trying to convince herself that he is okay, she gives him a furious handjob (he is now passed out), and he cums blood all over her. She drills a hole in his ankle and attaches a heavy grinding wheel to stop his movement. She then uses a pair of scissors to cut off her own clit, and then flees into the forest. When He awakens, He tries to get away, ending up crawling into a hole in the base on the same tree that they fucked against in the previous act. She finds him, digs him out, and then feeling bad about what she’s done, releases the grinding wheel, at which point, he stands up and strangles her to death.

I’m sure all of this sounds pretty extreme, and admittedly it is, but it is not nearly as graphic as it has been made to be. We don’t actually see the block of wood hit Dafoe’s testicles (although every guy in the audience will feel it), and other than Gainsbourg’s pubic hair, we don’t really see all that much when she cuts off her clit either. But even if Von Trier did show this all in more detail, it would still be valid because it is what the film demands at this point.

She is writing her thesis on the evil committed against women throughout human history. But somewhere along the way, she has become confused, as she has started to read it as the evil of women. She needs He to be in there to keep her sane, so She lashes out against He when She thinks He is going to leave her. Once the damage has been done, she punishes herself in a similar way (cutting off her clit is akin to crushing his testicles) as an act of penance. By desexualizing both of them, she is also in effect punishing them both for letting their carnal desires distract them as their son fell to his death.

The rest of the film is Von Trier playing with horror movie tropes. For much of the movie, we think that perhaps this going to be something akin to a “rape revenge” horror film, with He punishing She throughout, until She strikes back. But that’s not really what happens. She transforms in the final act to something akin to the prototypical movie slasher, and he in effect becomes the “survivor girl”. This further goes to the need to have the scenes leading up to this transformation in place. By crushing his testicles, She essentially emasculates He, and by cutting off her clit, she essentially defemintizes herself. There is a gender role reversal in the final act. In essence, Von Trier’s ending is the only ending that makes sense given what has come before it.

Now as I reach the end of the review, I realize that I have described what happens in the movie, but not what it all actually means, or why Von Trier actually made the movie. I agree with Roger Ebert that the film’s title is the key to understanding the movie, in that by renaming his film Antichrist, Von Trier has indicated that this is a film set in an alternate world, created by Satan, not by God, and in essence he has remade the book of Genesis in this world. The baby’s fall is man’s fall from Grace. Her sin is despair over losing her baby. His is pride in thinking he can “cure” her. Instead of comforting each other, as they would do in the Bible, they instead inflict pain on each other – He psychologically throughout the first two acts of the movie, She physically in the last act. If you need more proof of this, just look at the ways the animals in the film are portrayed – there is even a talking fox. Not to mention the film’s haunting final image, with a group of people ascending up the hill as He walks down it. These are Biblical images, but not from the Bible if you know what I mean.

I also realize that I have not yet praised the performances of Dafoe and Gainsbourg. They are both stunning, brave, fearless performances from great actors at the top of their game. His eerily calm voice recalls his work in The Last Temptation of Christ, where he played Jesus, but could just as easily be Satan tempting Jesus. Gainsbourg has the more difficult role, and she rips into it, giving the most fully realized performance of any actor in a Von Trier film ever. These two trusted their director, who ended up creating one of his very best films. Antichrist deserves to be taken seriously, and seriously discussed, no matter what your thoughts on the film are. In my mind, it’s one of the best films of the year.

God and the Cinema Part XIV: Lars von Trier

With Lars von Trier’s latest film, Antichrist, causing such a stir at the Cannes Film Festival this week, I decided to go back and have a look at some of his previous films for this week’s God and the Cinema Column. According to Roger Ebert, Antichrist is an alternate version of Genesis, replacing God with Satan as the creator of the Garden of Eden, and changing original sin for eating the apple to gain knowledge, with rejecting knowledge. I am not sure if the movie is good or bad – it has drawn wildly differing reviews – but I know it’s jumped to the top of my must see list for this year’s Toronto Film Festival.

Obviously however, I cannot write about that film. Instead I plan to look at what I like to call von Trier’s female martyr movies – Breaking the Waves (1996), Dancer in the Dark (2000), Dogville (2003) and Manderlay (2005). Personally, I love all four films, although I know that many hate them with just as much passion. The one thing you cannot deny about Von Trier however is that his films are all interesting. You made appalled or offended by them, but when you talk out of them you’ve seen something unlike what anyone else would put on the screen.

Breaking the Waves tells the story of Bess McNeal (Emily Watson), who is simple and childlike. On her wedding day to Jan (Stellan Skarsgaard), she is still a virgin, but soon she finds that she likes sex. Her Church, which is Calvinist, does not really approve of Jan for Bess, but she marries him anyway. He goes away to work on an oil rig, and Bess has trouble dealing with being by herself. She prays to God that next time Jan comes home; he will come home for good. When Jan comes home paralyzed, she is convinced that it was her selfish pray that led to Jan being that way. Jan then convinces Bess to start sleeping with other men, and coming back to tell him the details. Bess does and the sex becomes more and more deviant as the movie goes along – and Bess becomes more and more convinced that she is on a mission from God, and that by doing these things, Jan will be cured.

And so it seems, she’s right. Yet I think it’s important to note that Bess achieves her “martyrdom” outside of the church, not inside it. When she is attacked and lies dying in the hospital, she asks a friend from outside her religion to pray for Jan to walk again. When she dies, and Jan has indeed made a recovery, her church wants to bury her in the disrespectful way they bury all sinners – and it’s only Jan’s intervention that prevents this. The final shot of the movie is of ringing church bells – Bess it seems has been accepted into heaven.

Breaking the Waves is in some ways Von Trier’s most optimistic of his four female martyr movies, which may sound strange considering how grim and dour much of the film is. But Bess does accomplish what she wants, and receives God’s blessing in doing so. It’s also worth noting that after this film, which is set in Scotland, he turned his sights on America for the other three films, in which the women do not fare as well as Bess does in Breaking the Waves. God, at least according to Von Trier, seems to have abandoned America.

Dancer in The Dark shares many similarities with Breaking the Waves. Like Bess in that film, Selma (Bjork) in Dancer in the Dark is almost childishly naïve. She is a Czech immigrant working in a factory in America trying hard to save money. She has a genetic, degenerative disease that will soon cause her to go blind. She needs the money, not for herself, but for her son who has the same disease. She is going to go blind, but she wants to ensure that her son does not.

Selma’s only escape is her love of Hollywood musicals, which she and her friend (Catherine Denueve) go and watch all the time. When Selma gets bored, she daydreams that she is in the middle of these movies. These sequences are in stark contrast to the rest of the movie. The dramatic sequences are shot in a similar way to the Dogma 95 approach, of which Von Trier was a founding member, but the musical sequences have the gloss of the old Hollywood musicals that Selma loves.

Selma gets into trouble when the police officer she rents her small house from (David Morse) comes and asks her for a loan, because he wants to hold onto his materialistic wife and is broke. Selma refuses to give the loan, but to make the cop feel better about sharing his secret; she tells him that she is going blind. The cop will later sneak into her house, and hide, and watch where she keeps her money and then proceeds to steal it. When Selma finds her money gone, she goes to report the theft to the cop, and is confronted by his wife. She tells Selma about the money her husband brought home from their “safety deposit box”, and also how he confessed that he was having an affair with Selma, so she’ll have to move out immediately. Selma later goes to confront the cop, a struggle ensues, and the cop ends up shot. He is wounded, but will survive, but asks Selma to kill him, which she eventually does, and takes back her money to pay for her sons operation. She is put on trial for the cop’s murder, where she still refuses to divulge his secret, and is found guilty and sentenced to death. When her friends get her money back to hire an expensive lawyer to help get her off – she refuses again. Her son’s operation, which goes flawlessly, is more important to her then her own life. She goes singing and dancing down to the gallows.

While Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the Dark has many similarities, they also have significant differences as well – not just because the later contains musical sequences. In Breaking the Waves, Jan’s recovery is because God cured him, because of Bess’ actions, and she is given a pass into heaven. In Dancer in the Dark, it is not God, but science, that saves Selma’s sons eyesight, and we are given no indication as to whether Selma gets to go to heaven or not. Both women sacrifice themselves for the well being of others – essentially dying for humanities sins, not their own – but one does so with a higher calling in mind, the other does not. If this represents a turn away from God in the work of Von Trier, you really haven’t seen anything yet. Wait until we get to Dogville.

Dogville is the bleakest film yet from Von Trier. In the film, Grace (Nicole Kidman) arrives in the small Colorado mountain town of Dogville during the great depression, with gangsters hot on her trail. Tom (Paul Bettany) hides her in the mine, and gets rid of the gangsters, then convinces the rest of the town to go along with protecting her. At first, things seem to be going well, but soon the townspeople think that because they are putting themselves at risk, that Grace should repay them by doing jobs for them. So they work Grace like a slave, but she never complains. One day when the gangsters return, Grace is working in the house of Chuck (Stellan Skarsgaard). Knowing that Grace cannot scream out for help, because the gangsters would hear, Chuck rapes her. Soon the rest of the men in town are visiting Grace every night so they too can have sex with her – after all, she is prettier than any other woman in town. The one man who doesn’t is Tom – he says he loves her, and wants to marry her. He pressures Grace to have sex with him to, and she offers herself to him. “Just do what the rest of the men in town do” she tells him. Tom, who acts like an idealist and looks down upon the town, is really no better than the rest of them.

Von Trier, who is always experimenting with his films, decided on a strange, bold tactic for Dogville. The movie is shot entirely on a barren soundstage, without the benefits of a set. The houses, the streets, everything is represented merely by chalk outlines on the ground. This Brecht-ian technique serves to boil the story down to its essentials, and is not nearly as distracting as you may think. You soon forget about it as you drawn into the story.

Dogville differs from both Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the Dark in some very important ways. For one, Grace is not “martyring” herself for the well being on another person. Unlike Bess, who does it so Jan will be cured, or Selma, who does so her son can see, Grace subjects herself to the daily sexual humiliation for entirely different reasons. Tired of life in the “big city”, she has fled to a small town, where she thinks that people will be kinder and gentler, and life will be more simple and happy. When it turns out that the people in small towns are just as bad, if not exceedingly worse, Grace just sucks it up anyhow. She tries to escape at one point, but no one in town will let her go – they have too good a thing going with her. They seem to enjoy humiliating her at every turn. That is until the gangsters return again.

You see, Grace is not hiding from the gangsters because they want to kill her. The Big Man (James Caan) is Grace’s father, and he just wants her back. Eventually, when they return, Grace lets them know she is there. And this is where the movie really differs from the other two. Grace does not allow herself to be killed. She also, does not let the people who tormented her off the hook. She gets the gangsters to lay waste to the town, killing everyone in it. Grace herself puts the bullet in Tom’s head.

In three films, Von Trier has gone from allowing his central, naïve female character martyr herself to save her husband, to having a similar naïve woman play the role of Avenging Angel. Von Trier, who is openly on record as hating America (although he’s never been there), seems to be making the point that America is poisoned all the way through. Big towns, small towns, it doesn’t matter. The people there are shit, and God himself should smite them.

The final film that I’m going to look is Manderlay, Von Trier’s sequel to Dogville. Grace (now played by Bryce Dallas Howard – depending on what story you believe Kidman was either too busy to reprise her role, or refused to work with the egomaniacal Von Trier again) and her father have fled Dogville, and travelled through the rural South. They stop at a plantation named Manderlay, where Grace is horrified to discover that slavery is still in effect – 70 years after the Emancipation Proclamation. Grace, with the aid of her father’s lawyer and a couple of gunmen, stay on at the plantation to see that the slaves are not only set free, but take the plantation over themselves. If they work the farm, they should get the profits. At first, Grace makes the white family who owned the plantation work as slaves themselves, but they soon take off. The matriarch, Mam (Lauren Bacall), is dying, but before she goes she gives Grace a book called Mam’s Law, which details all the rules for running the plantation, and tells her to burn it. In the book, Mam identifies seven different kinds of “niggers” and how to deal with each kind. Grace is horrified by everything she sees. She takes it upon herself to fix things in Manderlay, lecturing everyone on equality and democracy. She eventually implements a kind of communism on the plantation itself.

It appears that Grace hasn’t really learned much from her experience in Dogville. Again, Grace is almost hopelessly naïve and idealistic, allowing herself to believe in the inherent goodness of people. She allows herself to fall in love with Timothy (Issach de Bankole) and taken in by seemingly proud nature. One of the most striking images of the film is the two of them – Bankole quite dark, and Howard exceedingly pale – having sex.

Grace is not the martyr this time around though. If she did learn anything in Dogville, it’s that you need to control the situation, and she does. But she gets just as frustrated this time around. Timothy is not the man she thought he was. And Mam’s Law, which she thinks is abhorrent, was really written by Wilhelm (Danny Glover), the only “slave” who knew that slavery was over. He conspired with Mam to keep the others there to protect them from the outside world. “This country is not ready for the black man to be free. They were not ready 70 years ago, they aren’t ready now and they won’t be ready 70 years from now” Wilhelm says (the 70 years in the future he talks about is not coincidently the early 2000s).

Manderlay is the most troublesome film of those discussed here, for several reasons. One is that in changing the nature of the central female character, away for martyr and into more of a benevolent occupier (the parallels to the invasion of Iraq in this movie are undeniable) I think Von Trier made Grace into even less of a character than she was before. The film is not as interesting dramatically, because now everyone stands for something else. The film is all metaphor. The casting of Bryce Dallas Howard in the role of Grace is a double edged sword. It makes more sense that the woman be younger than Kidman was in Dogville, and Howard, although still beautiful, does fit in better with the cast of character actors around her than Kidman did, but perhaps that is a bad thing. The point is that Grace is different from those around her, so having a glamorous movie star in the role, I think, makes a little more sense. Howard is still terrific in the film, but as I mentioned before, playing a more of a metaphor and less of a character hurts a little. True, both movies have heavy on metaphors and allegory and with the distancing style of the chalk outlines, we know from the start we are not meant to take the movie as “realism”, but rather as parable. But Von Trier did a better job in Dogville in marrying the parable to characters and story that make more dramatic sense.

Yet, Manderlay is still a fascinating movie, and one that is likely to inspire lively debates among people – that is if you can find anyone else to watch it with you (I did not). In fact, all of Von Trier’s films suffer at least a little bit because they are much more interesting to discuss than they are to watch. Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark and Dogville were all alive and engrossing movies, and to a certain extent so in Manderlay, but no matter how good they are, they are more interesting for the ideas they raise then how they raise them. This, of course, will lead to some charging Von Trier with pretentiousness and self involvement, and while those charges are no doubt true (how could they not be? At the press conference for Anti Christ at Cannes, he called himself the best director in the world), I for one am glad that Von Trier keeps making movies his way. Even if you hate them, you have to admit, they give you something to talk about.

I think Von Trier’s films, for a religious point of view, have grown increasingly cynical and less redemptive. In Breaking the Waves, we have a woman who sacrifices herself to God for the man she loves, and gets accepted into heaven for it. In Dancer in the Dark, again, she sacrifices herself for love, but it is less clear if she gains eternal life because of it. In Dogville, the woman subjects herself to repeated sexual humiliation, but instead of dying for their sins, like in the previous two movies, she strikes back laying waste to the town like a modern day Sodom and Gomorra. In Manderlay, she doesn’t even bother to do that – she simply leaves them to their own devices, to wallow in their own shit. If it’s true that Anti Christ is about a world created by Satan, and not God, then it would be in keeping with Von Trier’s approach. We start out in a world with a benevolent God, and end up in a world created by Satan. It’s been a fascinating progression to watch.