Von Trier’s extravagantly conceived neo-realist fable seems now like a monumentally significant film in the cinema of the new millennium. Laying out Von Trier’s grandiosly tragic and melodramatic journey of her golden heart heroine under the handheld griminess of Von Trier’s shaky documentary style creates a strange but inspired cinematic experience unlike anything that came before it. Not only did it jump start the Dogme movement but legitimized the lo-fi aesthetic for all filmmakers to come.
The Idiots (1998) dir. Lars von Trier
Starring: Anne Louise Hassing, Bodil Jørgensen, Jens Albinus, Troels Lyby
****
By Greg Klymkiw
To spass or not to spass; that, is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of the bourgeoisie, or to take arms against that which is a shallow sea of hypocrisy, and by the spassing, end them.
With assistance from the Bard of Avon, I ask you: Hast thou found thine inner idiot? No? Well then, get cracking, fool. In The Idiots, Lars von Trier's only official Dogme film - the movement he founded in 1995 during the 100th anniversary of movies with fellow Danish filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg to create pure, unfettered cinema - we are introduced to a group of young people who stage a perverse form of theatre in the arena of life itself where they enter any number of public places and pretend to be mentally retarded. Drooling, screeching, screwing up their face and engaging in overtly aberrant behaviour, these want-to-be activists engage in a theatre of cruelty. Their nastiness in exploiting those who are mentally ill and/or challenged to expose the nastiness of those they accost is lost on them, until a new member to their group begins to question their motives.
Interview segments of the participants which hint at eventual discord amongst the group punctuate several set pieces wherein our ragtag group spass or, in the colloquial parlance of the politically incorrect - "spazz out", have sex, argue, make up, break up and spass with abandon.
Few movies have made me laugh as hard as Lars von Trier's The Idiots. There is no question that the wholesale slaughter of sacred cows has always been a hallmark of the brilliant bad boy from Denmark, though I suspect none of his films are as gloriously, unabashedly, delightfully repugnant in rubbing an audience's nose in the putrid fecal matter of their own prejudices and repressions generated by their holier than thou pretence to political correctness. It is a cinematic declaration of war on bourgeois values, but it cuts much deeper than the surface - Lars von Trier digs his lens like a bayonet into the foul intestines of the bourgeoisie, rips them out and tosses them to the dirt for all to see. That said, those he skewers are also those who believe they are acting in defiance of said bourgeois values, but are as much a part of the problem as they believe they are the solution.
The movie begins brilliantly in an upscale restaurant where a snooty waiter takes an order from Karen (Bodil Jørgensen), a melancholy young woman who scales back her culinary desires due to a lack of funds. Around her are couples and quartets of affluent diners - quaffing expensive wine with their opulent brunch selections and occasionally cleansing their vile bourgeois palates with overpriced mineral water. Karen's eye roams to a corner of the dining establishment where a caregiver tries to control a table of her mentally retarded adult charges. They spit up their food, whine and grunt, then - much to everyone's dismay, two of them get up and begin wandering around the restaurant. One of the retardates is relatively benign - going up to each table, smiling and saying "Hi!" The other charges about in a fury. Hands are wiped on tablecloths belonging to other diners, baskets of bread rolls are removed from others and the caregiver is quite overwhelmed trying to control her charges. When the snooty waiter insists the caregiver control her group for the sake of the other diners, it simply becomes too overwhelming for her. When the benign retard approaches Karen's table, she is touched by his innocence and purity and accompanies the group as they're forced to leave the restaurant.
Up to this point, one is compelled to laugh quite uproariously - not AT the mentally challenged people, but WITH them in their innocent flouting of bourgeois convention and the stuck-up diners who are shocked by this behaviour.
Once everyone is bundled into the cab, it becomes clear that none of them are retarded - especially when they laugh about how they were all able to dine in a fancy restaurant without paying. As it is finally established that these people are engaging in a big practical joke, the laughs the film elicits are very different indeed. Now we laugh at the darkness of this group's actions. Not only do they spass in public, but do so in private as well. Spazzing-out delivers a sense of inner peace, but also a perverse sense of accomplishment that their actions are affecting a change in society. It's somehow even more viciously funny when we discover they're all lounging about on the family estate of the one member of the group who is much a member of the club he, and the group seek to condemn.
The Idiots is a film which belongs to a long and noble tradition of cinema that seeks to shock and provoke - to downright anger an audience. That said, the real anger should be directed at those who ARE angered BY THE MOVIE ITSELF and, of course, for all the wrong reasons. I think it's safe to say that this tradition exploded in full splendour with Luis Bunuel's L'Âge d'or, the scathing 1930 indictment of bourgeois values and, for good measure, the Catholic church. Since the release of The Idiots in 1998, the great Ulrich Seidl stomped about similar stylistic territory with Dogdays and I'm even compelled to include Tom Green's universally reviled, but stunning and vastly misunderstood bit of nastiness Freddy Got Fingered.
What Lars von Trier and those others prove beyond a shadow of a doubt is that if you're going to eviscerate something, it can't be done timidly, or in half measures. As always, pure disembowelment of the bourgeoisie MUST be bold. That's probably why I love Lars von Trier - he's always about being bold. And that, frankly, is what makes for great cinema!
This month, the work of the Danish bad boy genius of cinema is being featured in a TIFF Bell Lightbox retrospective entitled "Lars von Trier: Waiting for the End of the World" running until November 19. The Idiots is just one of several pictures in this series (including his latest masterpiece Melancholia) and this movie in particular will be playing Saturday November 19, 2011 at 8:00 PM - on a big screen and projected in glorious 35mm.
Europa aka Zentropa (1991) dir. Lars von Trier
Starring: Jean-Marc Barr, Barbara Sukowa, Udo Kier, Eddie Constantine, Ernst-Hugo Järegård, Jørgen Reenberg, Erik Mørk and Max von Sydow
****
By Greg Klymkiw
In 1990, Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin was directing his tragedy of the Great War Archangel which told a tale of lovers afflicted with severe mustard gas apoplexy who forget, at any given moment, who precisely they are in love with. To ensure his actors were always in a trance, he secured, with my deft finagling (in the spirit of full disclosure I was the film's producer) the services of a renowned hypnotist (who, due to a binding non-disclosure policy cannot be named) to place Maddin's on-camera charges in a state of waking and walking sleep during the entire shoot of the film. Complete and utter submission was the goal. Archangel was in black and white, occasionally colour tinted, replete with post-dubbed dialogue (also performed under hypnosis), a cornucopia of in-camera special effects including double (and triple) exposures, matte paintings, rear and front screen projection, as well as a series of optical shots. At the same time, across the pond from the Dominion of Canada, one Lars von Trier was making Europa (renamed Zentropa for its North American release) which, like Maddin's film, was set in a strange never-never land of historical revisionism (though in post-WWII Germany as opposed to Maddin's WWI/Russian Revolution cusp period). It too was in black and white (though with dollops of full-blown colour rather than colour tinting) and was, like Maddin's film, bursting at the seams with wild in-camera and optical effects.
Where they differed, and yet existed in the same zeitgeist, was this: Maddin hypnotized his actors whilst von Trier rendered a movie that literally hypnotized the audience. The results were identical. Much like any living subject of hypnotism, audience-members who opened themselves willingly to both cinematic experiences were, in fact, under the power of suggestion.
Upon first seeing Europa back in the 90s, I was initially coaxed into the alternately pleasurable and disturbing states of waking and walking sleep and as such, became so obsessed with Lars von Trier's vision that I fought hard on subsequent viewings to deflect the hypnotic power in order to fully experience his dazzling, sumptuous genius in all its glory. Twenty years after my initial exposure to his great film, I am not only happy to report that it holds up magnificently, but has deepened for me to such dizzying degrees that I am convinced it is one of the most stunning works of cinematic art I have ever seen.
Over the years, both von Trier and Maddin have been fêted with screenings at the Toronto International Film Festival and its Cinematheque. This month, the work of the Danish bad boy genius of cinema is being featured in a TIFF Bell Lightbox retrospective entitled "Lars von Trier: Waiting for the End of the World" running until November 19. Europa is just one of several pictures in this series (including his latest masterpiece Melancholia) and this movie in particular, (playing Saturday November 12, 2011 at 8:00 PM and Thursday November 17 @ 9:15 PM) will be screened as it MUST be seen - on a big screen and projected in glorious 35mm. This is especially important given the special quality in-camera and optical effects have over the much colder digital approach to rendering screen magic today. It is, finally, the warmth of cinema in the format of its birth that allows us to be enveloped in fluffy white blankets of forgetfulness (in Maddinesque parlance) and the sheer joyful terror of being forced into a unique, trance-like state of both yearning and forgetfulness that is, indeed, TRUE magic.
Europa begins with the hypnotic tones of a voiceover belonging to Max von Sydow (The Exorcist himself and longtime Ingmar Bergman star), whilst we slowly cascade over train tracks engulfed in darkness, save for the soft light beaming gently over the centre of the frame. Lars von Trier plunges us into the black tunnel that is Germany just after World War II. Leopold Kessler (Jean-Marc Barr), an American of German descent has come to his expatriate father's homeland and taken a job as a railway employee under the tutelage of his persnickety, alcoholic Uncle (Ernst-Hugo Järegård). He meets and falls in love with a fetching film-noir-like femme fatale, Katharina Hartmann (Barbara Sukowa) who is the daughter of the German rail magnate Max Hartmann (Jørgen Reenberg). He is taken into the family with open arms. Max, in particular, is drawn to the notion of Germany becoming more international and is impressed with Kessler's desire to bring his North American, yet German-influenced know-how to the reconstruction of the country.
This is in vast contrast to the American armed forces occupying the Fatherland. The American commander mysteriously presiding over all matters of a reconstructive variety is Colonel Harris (played by the brilliant, gravel-voiced American expatriate tough guy actor Eddie Constantine, he of Lemmy Caution fame in numerous French movies like Alphaville). Harris knows all too well that Max used his train company Zentropa to transport Jews to concentration camps, but he also realizes that a vast majority of Germany's populace had been, to varying degrees, complicit in the activities of the Nazi regime. He seeks to protect Max since he believes this guilt-ridden rail baron is ultimately important to the American goal of reconstruction. Harris is also embroiled in a secret fight against a mysterious group of German partisan terrorists called Werewolf and while the young American Kessler trains on the railways and romances Katharina, his services are secured to delve into and expose the forces of evil.
Europa is both important and original on numerous fronts. In terms of theme and content, it is one of the most indelible screen portraits of post-World War II Germany ever committed to celluloid. Delivering a narrative which, I think, more than ably points a finger at America's complicity in the evils of Nazi Germany, especially in terms of making it clear how many Americans owned munitions factories IN Germany and did business with the Nazis under the radar. The overwhelming sense that we are in a nightmare world where an occupying force bullies the occupied, yet represents the corporate interests of the occupier is precisely what Lars Von Trier exposes. For all the lip service paid to the needs of assisting Germany with reconstruction, he presents a portrait of American military goons exercising the same sort of encroachment upon basic civil liberties as the Gestapo. While he does not veer away from Germany's rightful guilt in supporting one of the most foul regimes in all of recorded history, his film is not afraid to point a finger at America's military regime and its fascistic defence of America interests - in particular, the corporate interests - using reconstruction as a thin veil over basic greed. Unrestricted sovereignty was not ultimately granted to Germany until reunification in 1990 - a point not lost on von Trier. Both the narrative and mise-en-scène etch a chilling portrait of occupation - juxtaposing the German adherence to bureaucracy with the American adherence to back-door dealing and how both are equally flawed, but also at odds with each other within the context of the political situation.
Mixed into this heady brew of conflicting ideals, von Trier never neglects the thematic elements of complicity, betrayal and redemption. The Americans - in particular, the character of Colonel Harris - are complicit only in their exploitation of the situation while on the German side, complicity is a heavy cross that all the other characters must bear. Betrayal runs rampant throughout the narrative, though von Trier wisely explores this theme within the tropes of film noir elements and melodrama. I place an accent on "wisely" here because at the time the film was made, Germany was on the cusp of reunification and the issues he deals with had repercussions on a world wide scale, but by placing them within this stylized framework, he created a work that is not ephemeral in its power, but is, indeed, truly universal. In this sense, Europa feels less a film of its time, but rather, a film for all times. For example, while I feel the best works of American cinema in the 70s more than adequately capture the overwhelming paranoia of the period WITHOUT feeling dated, these are films directly from the periods of history and culture they represent.
Making a film in any contemporary context and looking back upon a period of history with contemporary eyes, requires an emphasis upon recreating the past world with indelible historical accuracy on as many levels as possible. However, when placing works dealing with historical issues and made during different historical periods - especially a film about the beginnings of occupation in Germany made at a time of German reunification - framing its narrative and themes in an almost post-modern aesthetic allows the artist a context to create a work that's truly visionary. This, is what Lars von Trier accomplishes. Reading reviews from the time of Europa's original release, one sees how even the best of the best acknowledge von Trier's visual gifts, but dismiss and/or outright ignore his narrative and political savvy. This, of course, did not keep the film from finding an audience at the time, but what's phenomenal to me is just how ahead of its time the film actually was, and in a sense, still is. Certainly viewing the film in the context of the current situation we face in terms of the economy, terrorism, the corporate imperialism of America, the domination of the New World Order and the horrendously obvious notion that war is ultimately all about money, Europa is without question a film for our times and, no doubt, will be so in the future as well.
The idea in certain circles, a confederacy of dunces to my way of thinking, that there's something wrong with melodrama is both myopic and elitist. There is, to be sure, good melodrama and bad melodrama, but it is a worthy genre and one that can work quite perfectly when presenting important historical and political themes. I suspect that von Trier and Maddin might well be cinema's leaders in understanding the importance of utilizing melodrama within stories dealing with political, historical and/or humanist subjects. Neither are afraid of filling their work with retro melodramatic devices and doing so, not with tongue in cheek, but playing them straight. When this approach sings ever-so sweetly, it is the humour - both natural and satirical - that comes to the fore - sans the empty spoof-like manner which is the domain of the holier-than-thou, the better-than-that and all the other head-nodding-eye-winking purveyors of mediocrity.
Europa is deliciously blessed with both the crazed big emotions of Douglas Sirk and the humanity of Carl Dreyer. Most amazingly, there are several moments of suspense that even owe their existence to the feverish qualities of D.W. Griffith - notably, several sequences involving the arming of a bomb and the subsequent attempt to disarm the bomb. Von Trier throws in everything including the kitchen sink to extend our dread and anticipation. Our desire for relief to said tension hits stratospheric heights. In addition to the visual flourishes reminiscent of another age, the score is sumptuously derived from a variety of original and pre-recorded pieces - most notably and pointedly from Bernard Herrmann's haunting music from Hitchcock's dreamy expressionistic thriller Vertigo. The stylized performances - aided further with the use of hollow dubbing - are a marvel and in particular, Jean-Marc Barr as the addled protagonist delivers what surely must be one of the bravest performances I've ever seen. He runs the gamut of emotion, but often in a controlled and intentionally stiff manner. He allows himself to be the puppet of Lars von Trier and as such, takes the thankless, but often surprising and engaging task of representing our (we, the audience) point of view. He is our way in to this world and for an actor to expose himself and yield so uncompromisingly to a filmmaker's vision is brilliantly, stunningly, delightfully foolhardy and ultimately, what makes his performance and the film itself so great.
This is razzle-dazzle filmmaking at its best. The bonus is plenty of food for thought and the cherry on the sundae is the occasional laughs and tears von Trier elicits from us. Some have charged that von Trier's approach is, in this, and other films, cold.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you - once again - the aforementioned confederacy of dunces.
One of the more extraordinary achievements of Europa is the narration. It works two-fold. First, it is a hypnotic device - literal hypnotism and I'd argue that anyone open to the picture on a first viewing will, indeed, succumb. Secondly, it's a wonderful use of the great, though rare literary tradition of a second person point of view. In contemporary American literature this was popularized by Jay McInerney in his brilliant 1984 debut novel Bright Lights Big City. The book announces its bold style and brash approach in these extraordinary opening sentences:
"You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning. But here you are, and you cannot say that the terrain is entirely unfamiliar, although the details are fuzzy."
The idea of a detached voice speaking directly to its central character in order to relay the narrative was, even in the 80s, not a new approach, but it was one that thrust the pelvis of its literary conceit in the faces of readers all over the world and frankly, proved to be an ideal way of telling the story of a young man in the midst of a cocaine-addled phase of his life. As von Trier's central character Kessler is plunged into a similarly opaque world, we constantly hear Max Von Sydow's "you-are-getting-sleepy"-styled hypnotic offscreen orders to both the character and viewer. In 80s New York, it's coke-fuelled headlong dives into nightclubs. In Post-World War II Germany, its the strange, dreamy, addled world of occupation.
Certainly William Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom! is replete with both second person point of view and narrative techniques and is, in a sense, very close to the territory von Trier explores in Europa. Where Faulkner's novel is rooted in myth, one in which its central character is representative of the myth of the deep South and resulting in his ultimate, almost inevitable demise, von Trier's Europa seems similarly rooted in myth - in particular that of the Greek goddess of Europa who is seduced by a horny, old Zeus. That Europa herself, in mythic terms, was from a long, noble lineage is also a fascinating element in von Trier's film. We have Kessler, for example, seduced by his German roots and his American need to "do good" (or, one might even suggest the deeper American need to "meddle") and his attraction to the female heir to the Hartmann's rail empire.
In Faulkner's words:
"You cannot know yet whether what you see is what you are looking at or what you are believing."
Beat by beat, shot by shot - this is Europa. Images we will never forget rush by - Kessler dashing in silhouette in front of a huge illuminated clock, a scarlet ocean of blood rushing from under a door, a harrowing walk through mysterious cars on the Zentropa train full of caged Holocaust victims, corpses of "werewolf" partisans hanging from knotted ropes round their snapped necks, exquisitely composed Josef von Sterberg-like shots of Barbara Sukowa resembling Marlene Dietrich come-to-life, the desperate flailing of a drowning man as he seeks life and instead finds redemption and finally, the most gorgeous of all - a midnight Christmas mass in a bombed-out cathedral as puffs of snow gently fall upon the devout.
We cannot know yet what we see is what we're looking at, or what we're believing.
Melancholia (2011) dir. Lars Von Trier
Starring: Kirsten Dunst, Kiefer Sutherland, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Alexander Skarsgård, Stellan Skarsgård, John Hurt
**½
By Alan Bacchus
Lars Von Trier is back to titillate us with another meta-spiritual film featuring a tortured woman on an emotional downward spiral to oblivion. Last time it was Charlotte Gainsbourg battling the obsessive therapy of her despicable husband in Antichrist. This time it’s Kirsten Dunst as a bride on her wedding day, which rapidly goes from the highs of nuptial bliss to utter despair and humiliation – all the while another planet in the celestial skies has been approaching Earth on a collision course.
It’s another bold conceptual stroke from the same hand that dared to make a three-hour movie on a soundstage with no sets (Dogville). Immediately we get the same kind of feeling we got from Von Trier’s Dogme 95 films in the late ‘90s. We’re introduced to Justine (Dunst) and Michael (A. Skarsgård) in a limo on the way to their wedding taking place on a spectacular mansion estate. It’s an affable scene showing the inability of the driver to fit the lengthy car into the entranceway to the grounds. Von Trier’s handheld camera and jump-cuts recall his work in The Idiots, Dancer in the Dark and Breaking the Waves. The film also shares the optimistic tone that opened those films compared to the eventual trough of depression that ended them. As such, this scene induced a certain excitement about where Von Trier would take us this time.
The film is structured formally into two distinct halves, titled appropriately using the two sisters’ names, Justine (Dunst) and Claire (Gainsbourg). Justine’s story depicts the wedding, which, after the fun romp at the entranceway in the opening, devolves through the petty family squabbles of Justine’s divorced parents and the obsessiveness of her brother-in-law, John (Sutherland).
From the get-go, something is wrong with Justine. Everyone treats her with kid gloves and walks on eggshells around her. For no apparent reason she starts to exhibit signs of manic depressive behaviour. Instead of comfort, everyone from Claire to John, and even her new husband, rejects her. It’s a deeply tragic ending to this chapter, but it sets up her eventual redemption in the second half. Unfortunately, we never get to the cause of Claire’s melancholia, or at least we never receive the satisfaction implied by Von Trier’s very mysterious setup.
Claire’s story begins in the fall-out after the wedding. After the guests have left, Claire finds herself babysitting Justine in the estate with her rotten husband who obsesses about the encroaching planet in the sky. Although John is convinced that the planet will pass by Earth safely, Justine is not. When it’s clear to Claire that Earth is doomed, including her and her son, Von Trier moves into the heightened realm of cinematic existentialism.
A powerful reversal occurs for Justine, as she rises up from the depression of her wedding to accept her fate with grace. For Claire, the realist, she can only see death and destruction, which enables her own breakdown.
Melancholia works best on this conceptual level. Unfortunately, Von Trier leaves much to be desired in execution. Sadly, his film is bogged down by a heavy running time (134 minutes) without a full narrative to support it. To put it simply, not much happens, and since we know where the film will end it becomes a struggle to engage in the journeys of the characters when they’re drawn out to such an excessive length.
It’s a shame because like Antichrist, Melancholia features some of Von Trier’s most beautiful and profound moments. His use of Wagner, which conveys the sad tone implied by the film’s title, fits perfectly. His expressive use of extreme slo-motion in the opening scene is stunning, and the actual ‘disaster’ moment is a climax of extreme power leaving the viewers awestruck at the end.
Melancholia opens this Friday in Toronto via E1 Entertainment.
Melancholia (2011) dir. Lars von Trier Starring: Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Kiefer Sutherland, Charlotte Rampling, John Hurt, Stellan Skarsgard, Udo Kier
****
By Greg Klymkiw
Every year I gain more life experience and creep closer to death. The thing I love almost as much as my family, my friends and my very mortality – movies – will occasionally yield the work of artists I enjoy growing with as I advance towards bodily putrification and (I hope) spiritual transcendence.
Lars von Trier has been, for me, one of those artists. My relationship with him has been complicated. His early work drove me up a wall, but with each new film, as he's grown, I have, in turn, found myself more and more drawn to his vision.
His new movie, Melancholia, is deeply moving.
It is a tale of two sisters – Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) – privileged beyond belief, yet facing many of the same demons and challenges we all must confront.
Respectively, one is ethereal, the other pragmatic.
Together they face the ultimate destruction.
Last year, von Trier redefined the horror genre in his own image with the stunning Antichrist. With Melancholia, he seeks to do the same with science fiction.
In its own strange, gentle fashion the picture succeeds admirably.
Melancholia is, one one hand, an extension of Thomas Vinterberg’s handheld examination of a bitter family sniping in a country home in the 1998 masterpiece of the dogme movement The Celebration (AKA Festen).
Blend that, then, with a poetic Kubrick-like rumination on the universe (similar but less New-Agey than Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life) and an end of the world saga (think a kinder, gentler, deeper Deep Impact) and you have a picture guaranteed its place in the pantheon of the greats.
From the beginning we’re plunged into a blend of surrealism, expressionism and German Romanticism as Richard Wagner’s soaring Tristan and Isolde Overture wells up on the soundtrack. Here we’re treated to a series of sumptuous, gorgeously composed shots of the universe, nature, the opulence of the sprawling estate the film is set on, weirdly beautiful images of Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourgh and a magnificent steed seemingly moving forward, which, as we keep fixing our gaze, move in reverse. Or are they going forward, too? This montage, layered with beauty and portent, climaxes with a shot of the most gorgeous image of mass destruction I’ve yet to witness in any film.
We are now ready for Melancholia in all its splendour.
The carefully composed images of this evocative preamble lead to his trademark dogme-styled shaky-cam as we follow the events of Justine’s wedding day.
And what a wedding!
Maestro von Trier plunges us into a dinner party that explodes with yummy vitriolic sniping amongst the assembled members of the family.
Justine and her handsome, but rather unimaginative, bland and ineffectual husband Michael (Alexander Skarsgard) arrive two hours late and are chastized by Charlotte.
Justine’s Dad (John Hurt) appears with two chubby ladies both named Betty and drunkenly engages in a childish game of openly filching the silverware and complaining repeatedly to a server about the lack of said silverware. Justine’s Mom (Charlotte Rampling), with nary a shred of humour, hurls out a variety of bile-tainted barbs against her silly ex-husband.
During his toast, Dad quips about Mom’s "domineering" qualities. Mom proceeds to disagree and then, in a most "domineering" fashion, steals the limelight, interrupting Dad’s speech and makes one of her own. It's quite the inspirational wedding speech as she declares, "I hate marriage" and adds her well-wishes to the happy couple with: "Enjoy it while it lasts!"
Udo Kier offers a whole whack of magnificent scene stealing knee-slappers as the pricey, pretentious wedding planner who prissily declares he's "at his wit's end". He later complains that Justine has ruined “his” wedding and announces he will never again look at her. In a hilarious running gag, dearest Udo holds up his hand and averts his eyes every single time Kirsten Dunst passes him.
Ah, family!
Ah, weddings!
Ah, Maestro von Trier!
He delivers the goods what might be one of the most memorable movie weddings - right up there with The Godfather and The Deer Hunter.
The lovely bride mopes about inconsolably. The best man (and her ad agency boss), played by Stellan Skarsgard with suitable slime-oozing, expects her to – at the wedding, no less! – come up with a tag line for their new and important client, Claire natters on to Justine about decorum while her husband John (a great Kiefer Sutherland - oddly sweet AND knobbish) keeps reminding everyone how much the wedding is costing him.
Pathetic hubby Michael proves he clearly doesn't have the stuff to enter this family. When it's time for him to make a speech, he burbles out a few uncomfortable sentiments that boil down to "I love you." Nice enough if you're marrying into a "normal" family, but clearly inadequate for this clan endowed with flamboyant dysfunction and, one hell of a lot of style. Even more pathetic is when Michael privately presents Justine with his wedding gift - a snapshot of an Empire Apple orchard that he just bought for their years of retirement.
I don't know about you, but if I were Kirsten Dunst at the peak of my youth and beauty, the last thing I'd want to be thinking about on my wedding night is sitting in the shade of an apple tree when I'm more wizened and rotting than an apple that's fallen to the ground and has festered in the sun.
Is then, any wonder that just before the cutting of the cake, Justine decides to take a bath.
Her loopy Mother decides to do the same.
Like daughter, like mother.
Furious, John grabs his Mother-in-law’s luggage and tosses the bags out front of the mansion. And just when it looks like all will settle down once husband and wife retreat to the nuptial boudoir, the new bride spurns hubby’s advances and rushes out onto the rolling lawns to look at the heavens and then have sex in a sand trap on the estate’s golf course with her boss’s nephew.
Does any of this sound familiar? It should. All families behave this way, don’t they?
The entire first part of the film is subtitled “Justine”. The second half is subtitled “Claire”. In the latter portion of the film we discover that a mysterious planet, long hidden behind the sun, is making its way in the direction of the Earth. Astronomy buff John insists this will be an interplanetary “fly-by”, but Claire's obsessive internet trolling suggests there’s a very distinct possibility that the humungous, blue, glowing orb will collide with the Earth at a rate of 60,000 miles per second.
It is here the film launches into a tremendously sad waiting game as the sisters keep trying to make (mostly on Claire’s part) the sort of sibling connections of love that have kept and indeed keep eluding them.
By fusing a darkly comic domestic drama with an impending apocalypse, von Trier has created a bold and original work. There’s obviously the possibility that the movie works on a purely metaphorical level since the planet threatening Earth is called Melancholia and as such, this all might actually be one grand statement that the sickness of depression is what threatens to swallow everyone and everything whole.
I prefer, however, to think the metaphor exists within the literal context of life on Earth being snuffed out. I suspect this is ultimately the case as Justine's character feels like a mouthpiece for von Trier himself - especially when she very matter-of-factly declares: “The Earth is evil. Life on Earth is evil.”
As evil as it may be for von Trier, this evil has also yielded his genius and, most importantly, gives us an exquisitely beautiful, haunting and thought-provoking work of art.
Maestro von Trier has also created images that shall never retreat from the memory banks of all who see his film. Who will ever forget, for example, Kirsten Dunst adorned in her wedding dress as she lay (Ophelia-like) in a stream or as she bathes naked upon a rock under the gorgeous blue glow from the rogue planet?
And for every image of heartbreaking beauty, von Trier counters it with something so indelibly appalling (the vicious beating Justine lays upon her horse Abraham) that he creates, once more, an important film exposing the dichotomous nature of life itself.
It’s a great picture! Any petulant nonsense von Trier spewed out at the notorious Cannes film festival press conference about being a Nazi should ultimately be swept under a rug.
There's no need to allow anything to impede your experience of seeing this movie.
Melancholia is having its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF 2011) and will be released theatrically in Canada via e-one Entertainment.
Antichrist (2009) dir. Lars von Trier Starring: Willem Dafoe, Charlotte Gainsbourg
*1/2
By Alan Bacchus
The term 'love it or hate it' is not just hyperbole in the case. Lars Von Trier’s cause-célèbre truly is a provocative discussion piece, dividing audiences and critics along both aesthetic and emotional lines. Well I have finally seen the film, months after the debates, so is there any point in debating any more? Well, since two of my other colleagues wrote raving about it (click HERE for Blair's, and HERE for Greg's) let this review be the antidotes to theirs.
"Antichrist" is a steaming, stinking, art house coiler if there ever was one. All of the publicly debated notoriousness - the nudity, the sexual violence, the so-called misogynistic undertones – couldn’t distract from its vacant, flimsy metaphors which needed leaps of Superman-like powers to link toward a profound understanding of what this picture means.
You may know the story by now, a psychological two-hander between the film’s two protagonists, Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg going through a particularly intense grieving process after the death of their son. A process which starts out as psychoanalysis of the husband to his wife and degenerates into psychological and physical torture.
Like his slightly less annoying 'Dogville', the film is divided arbitrarily into four chapters plus an prologue and an epilogue (two less chapters than Dogville - thank you Lars), which is false advertising, as it sets up expectations of a tonal shift, or a story shift, but it’s just window dressing, smoke and mirrors for something that is inert.
Admittedly I appreciated the opening sequence. It was fun to see von Trier exercise those muscles of cinematic stylization. The B&W, in slow-mo, and impeccably choreographed had the same melodramatic excessiveness of one of those great Brian DePalma set pieces. But the guts of the film, hurray!, is the lengthy grieving process, Dafoe as the rational therapist who applies his textbook methods to his wife who grieves with complete emotional nakedness.
Oh yeah there’s lots of nakedness. One of themes is his wife’s sexual addictions which she sees as the cause of the boy’s death. As the film becomes more intense and the woman loses her grip on reality, we see her sexual predilections become more extreme resulting in some horrific anatomical close-ups of sexual mutilation.
There is nothing profound in this – two people fighting with each other and blaming each other for the death of their child. Von Trier tries to arthouse-ize his film with a series of random visual metaphors, which never connect in any meaningful way – admirable only as stand alone images
- The poster shot of the two having sex by the tree with the arms and legs protruding from the roots, is a great image, but meaningless - The raining acorns, meaningless - The talking dog that yells ‘chaos reigns’, meaningless - The camera pushing into a close-up of a plant, meaningless - The deer giving birth to a lamb, meaningless
I assume those Antichrist zealots somehow linked all this randomness together, so maybe I’m the nave?
Perhaps most surprising, is Von Trier technical sloppiness in choreographing his grand finale. When man and woman resort to physical restraint and bodily mutilation, there’s action and fighting ensures, which is so poorly blocked and shot we’re instantly removed from the drama of this climax.
Those money shots – that is, the bloody cumshot, the clitoral home surgery etc – fails to have any impact other than shocks because don’t add feeling to the tone or overall feeling of the film. To compare these moments to say, another even more grotesque film about torture, “Salo: Or the 120 Days of Sodom”. While a jerking someone off till they ejaculate blood was anomalous to Antichrist, in “Salo” having its characters eat shit off the floor actually seemed ‘right’ for that film.
And lastly the title is a complete misnomer. To not pay off using ‘Antichrist’ as your title is perhaps the worst cheat to the audience.
Antichrist (2009) Dir. Lars von Trier Starring: Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg
****
Guest Review By Greg Klymkiw
“Antichrist” is a movie that burns its reflection of pain into your memory like a branding iron – plunging itself into your head and searing your brain matter, creating that sickeningly sweet stench that only burning flesh gives off and remaining in your nostrils for (no doubt) a lifetime. The pain and by extension – the Passion – also stays with you. A first viewing renders you drained, immobile, and numb and yet, paradoxically there are feelings of profound excitement – that you have witnessed an expression of emotion in ways that only cinema, of all the art forms, is capable of delivering. You are also breathless, and in spite, or maybe even because of the horror you’ve witnessed, you’re almost giddy with the desire to recall every beat, every image and every soul sickening moment of the experience. It’s a movie that demands to be seen more than once – it is a movie to be cherished, savored and devoured as ravenously and gluttonously as possible. There’s simply no two ways about it – “Antichrist” is a great movie! It will be loved! It will be hated! It will be debated! And it will never be forgotten – neither by those who see it, nor by the sands of time! It’s a picture designed to live forever and will, no doubt, be Lars von Trier’s masterpiece.
Now, I will be the first to admit that my feelings about von Trier are very mixed. He is clearly a serious filmmaker who demands the sort of regard one lavishes upon great artists, yet in spite of this, I have often felt that his art, though dazzling, is rooted in a spurious bad-boy posturing wherein his motives seem no more serious than any hack that machine tools a product for the widest consumption possible. Then again, I am reminded of the fact that all films and certainly most great films ARE exploitation – they exploit subject matter, human emotion and the audience – the best doing so with great panache. And in this regard, von Trier is a master. The difference, of course, is that rather than working within genre and/or dramatic convention, his is the work of the high-toned, the intelligentsia (if you will) and that his genre is that of the “art house film” and as such, he has developed his voice and craft to a sufficient degree that he has earned the right to be called “master” even though I and many others detest much of his work.
With “Antichrist” von Trier has made a horror film – pure, though not so simple. Alternately fueled by his clear love and respect for Strindberg’s great play “Miss Julie” and the work of filmmaker Carl Dreyer, von Trier ventures into the sort of daring territory we not only expect from him, but frankly, must demand of our greatest artists. As a horror film, however, it might not immediately be in the territory we expect, but certainly as it proceeds on its unrelenting journey, we know all to well that we are ensconced in the genre – not in a traditional manner, but certainly in its use of expressionistic elements.
At the end of the day, “Antichrist” creates exactly what we have come to expect from the genre of horror and it is infused with a creepy quality that not only keeps us on the edge of our collective seats, but inspires the sort of revulsion that dares to make us feel resolutely unclean for having participated in his powerful, foul descent into human suffering. Goose flesh of the most unpleasant kind overtakes us as we watch the picture and when it ramps up to scenes of PHYSICAL torture and violence (the first two-thirds of the picture deal in psychological aspects of the above mentioned), one’s revulsion takes on dimensions that are almost indescribable.
The movie is broken into four parts, or “chapters” as von Trier labels them, which are bracketed by a prologue and an epilogue. The prologue introduces us to the characters of a man (Willem Dafoe) and a woman (Charlotte Gainsbourg) as they make love – the only sound accompanying their passionate coupling being a haunting aria by Handel. As they reach a pitch of orgasm, we follow their infant child as he wanders about the house and eventually perishes in a horrendous, tragic accident. The four chapters that follow are entitled “Grief”, “Pain” “Despair” and “The Three Beggars” as we experience the couple’s suffering and the man’s attempts to help his wife (he’s a psychiatrist) deal with her pain and in so doing, to assist himself with his own feelings of despair.
Most of this is set against the backdrop of a remote cabin in the wilderness where much of the creepy qualities emanate from the natural world itself. This extended therapy session builds to one of the most sickening extensions of inner pain imaginable – where the internal becomes very external. It’s Strindbergian as all get-out, but von Trier doesn’t merely place a razor in “Miss Julie’s” hand, he takes us into the full-blown horror of the actions, which in Strindberg’s play are only implied. The epilogue, which follows the orgy of horror, contains some of the most stunning images I have ever seen in a picture – images that are as heart-achingly beautiful as they are grotesque. And while von Trier is definitely in Strindberg territory, he does not separate naturalism from expressionism, but is quite happy to make use of both and, when necessary, blend these elements.
As to the charges of misogyny leveled against the film, I can only hurl out the invective, “Bullshit!” While von Trier does not fully attain a level of spirituality that infuses the work of Carl Dreyer, he is nevertheless playing in a similar sandbox in terms of exploring the subjugation and exploitation of women at the hands of patriarchy and/or organized religion. The relentless analysis forced upon Gainsbourg’s character by Willem Dafoe’s character takes on the creepy hysteria and austerity that Dreyer himself explored in “The Passion of Joan of Arc”, “Day of Wrath” and “Gertrud”. That said, however, von Trier allows a turning of the tables that Dreyer could never have brought himself to actually do, though in fairness, I have some belief that if Dreyer were making films today, he might well have dared to cross into the same territory von Trier does in “Antichrist” – territory that is as horrific as it is uniquely and profoundly moving.
I reiterate – “Antichrist” is a great picture!
“Antichrist” is playing at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival and will be theatrically released in Canada by E1 Films.
Antichrist (2009) dir. Lars Von Trier Starring: Charlotte Gainsbourg, Willem Dafoe
***1/2
By Blair Stewart
Note from the Editor: Antichrist doesn't open in North America until the October, but for international readers who have seen it, or want to see it, here's some thoughts. My own review will be forthcoming once it's available over here:
I would like to remove the Lars Von Trier part from "Antichrist", to separate not the filmmaker from the act, but the filmmaker's act. While reading the negative reviews from Cannes my sense of the outrage caused by the film wasn't all due to its ferocious violence, but to the troublesome man behind the curtain. Lars has pissed off many people since he arrived in film, myself included with his claim that he half-assed the creation of this film due to depression. Then again Ridley Scott and Kubrick could be bastards as well and they made "Alien" and "The Shining" after all. A good horror film is still a good horror film, that fact is unshakeable.
In crisp black-and-white He (Willem Dafoe) and She(Charlotte Gainsbourg) fornicate in slow-motion as their baby in sharp detail climbs out the window and falls to its death in the snow. She suffers a breakdown as a result, and He as a psychotherapist packs her out of hospital to their Eden, a cabin in the woods, to recover. His idea is She needs to get off medication immediately and face her fears of the woods which will help the recovery process somehow. Once She's out of the mental ward He grills her with 'therapeutic' questions, mental torture before the physical torture is broached between them. The sex that takes place here is very graphic, the violence that will occur more so. As human nature succumbs to base desires in the woods so too does Nature itself with the couple under seige from acorns and anthropomorphic wood creatures. "Antichrist" builds this tension with the presence of the overbearing forest as a bogeyman, as "The Blair Witch Project" also showed the woods is a void to get lost in.
Both Gainsbourg and Dafoe's performances veer into madness, and they do it exceptionately well. Wiliem Dafoe's career has been on auto-pilot for a bit before this, while demure Gainsbourg who won best actress at Cannes eventually becomes a terrifying, crackling figure. Behind the camera Anthony Dod Mantle does his finest work in evoking the budding terror of their surroundings with a rippling kaleidoscopic lens effect causing the background to breathe.
As the director, Lars is indeed one of the best in the world regardless of his likelihood as an insufferable one. The one person most due for praise afterwards might be Lars's wife. Von Trier cut his teeth in horror with "The Kingdom" in the early 90's and it appears there were certain images he had stocked away since then to unleash on the screen. After the minor "Manderlay" and "The Boss of It All", Lars has unleashed a petrol bomb in my opinion, an 'art-film fart bomb' in others. The epilogue of "Antichrist" is a beautiful sequence, and a deeply unsettling one even for jaded cinema goers, it achieves what it sets out to do.
What remains after "Antichrist" is lingering questions. Is it misogynistic? Yes, and once again Von Trier puts his actress(and womanhood)through the ringer, but in hindsight He(Dafoe) becomes much more unsypathetic with the repression of Himself. A wonky reveal about the dead child late in the film puts some of Her behaviour into question, but the anarchy distracted from this plot point for some viewers. Should the NC-17 version have been banned from screens in Europe?
No, because it shares an equal pessimism with Goya's "Black Paintings" and Francis Bacon's work and I don't think those canvases should be taken down either. If "Ichi the Killer" and "Irreversible" previously passed through the gates with less fanfare, the barbarians have already invaded. Should you see it? If you like thought-provoking horror, or wanted to experience the worst first-date movie since "Blue Velvet", then yes, go right ahead. Enjoy?
Antichrist (2009) dir. Lars von Trier
Antichrist (2009) Dir. Lars von Trier
Antichrist (2009) dir. Lars Von Trier
