Reassessing Lars von Trier

I hope to include more posts about film in general in the future, and not simply limit my writing to reviews. So to begin, I'll cover my current obsession, the films of Lars von Trier.

My introduction to von Trier's work, as mentioned in an earlier post, was with the 2009 art-house horror film Antichrist. I just watched it for the second time, and I'm still convinced that it's an absolute masterpiece. Since initially seeing that film last December, I've seen an additional 4-5 of his films and recently read a biography focusing on his films. I feel I have a much greater understanding not only of his career in general, but specifically Antichrist, which I would undoubtedly place amongst my favorite films.

When I first watched Antichrist, my main complaint was the use of CGI. After the second viewing, this issue didn't bother me so much. Unlike most directors, von Trier really does use CGI as a story-telling tool, not simply something nice to look at (on that note, I'm intrigued by the recent news that Wim Wenders and Werner Herzog will be filming documentaries in 3D, though not necessarily excited). Sure, the fox grunting "Chaos reigns" is over the top, but in the context of the film, it's rather unsettling. And this is the crux of my complaint against Antichrist, the scenes that unsettle create more terror than the scenes that shock.

There are 3 instances of true horror for me in the film, and none of them feature the graphic violence the film is notorious for sporting. In one scene, "He" (Willem Dafoe) is flipping through "She's" (Charlotte Gainsbourg, whose album IRM, which was inspired by her experience on this film is well worth checking out) thesis work, titled "Gynocide". The camera shows the pages as he flips through, with the handwriting descending quickly into unintelligible scribbles by the end of the book.

This scene is genuinely terrifying, and I think nullifies any claim of misogyny brought against von Trier for this particular film (his "Golden Heart" trilogy on the other hand may be harder to defend, a set of films in which horrible things happen to women for no apparent reason). Gainsbourg's character proves in multiple instances that she is not mentally stable, so any claims she makes shouldn't be read outside the context of insanity ("A crying woman is a scheming woman", for example). Von Trier undoubtedly erred (or rather, provoked) in granting the character only the designation of "She", placing her as both Eve and Cain by housing her in Eden.

To return to my complaint, the film excels as an uncomfortable psychological horror film. I think I initially thought of it as Persona meets Saw, and it's really just a distinct break between the two, not so much a streamlined convergence. The Bergmanesque power struggle, as one reviewer designated it, really carries the film for me. I can even buy the supernatural elements of the film, embrace them even. But up until the fourth chapter of the film, "The Three Beggars", Antichrist is a fascinating film about coping with grief (and pain and despair) in all the wrong ways.

After the now infamous fox warns "He" of what is currently reigning, the film descends into the model of a more typical horror film. But this isn't to suggest the film falters in this regard. I think von Trier would have done better to avoid the explicit, limit his terror to the subtle scenes and revelations that can get under a viewers skin (Dafoe's realization that "There is no such constellation" is ultimately more unsettling than 1000 bloody ejaculations, much less one). But he doesn't, and as a result, I had to stare at the ceiling for parts of my initial viewing in order to not vomit (snip snip).

So where does a film like this fit in with the rest of his work? I'll admit that I haven't seen some of the more important works of his career, such as the second half of his breakthrough film Breaking The Waves, his Golden Palm winning Dancer In The Dark, or his acclaimed television show "The Kingdom", which seems to be his one creation that didn't completely polarize audiences, but I feel that I have a pretty good understanding of his work in general.

Von Trier's work is based largely on freedom found only through restriction. The most famous example of this is the Dogma 95 "Vow of Chastity" that he wrote with fellow Danish director Thomas Vinterberg. With the Dogma manifesto, von Trier made an attempt to return film to story-telling, while gaining as much publicity as possible in the process. He made only one Dogma film, The Idiots, a film that nobody has ever seemed too excited to praise, much less mention. I unfortunately haven't seen this film either.

Though the Dogma manifesto is von Trier's most famous, it was hardly his first. All three of his first films, The Element of Crime, Epidemice and Europa, his so called Europe trilogy, each featured an accompanying manifesto. Like the Dogma one, these dealt primarily with technical issues, rather than conceptual or plot driven issues. Later films like Dogville also found the director working under constraints, that film being shot entirely on a single sound studio with only chalk lines and minimal props to mark the boundaries in the setting.

From the beginning of his career (and what a beginning it was! The Element of Crime, which is barely more than a feature length student film is undoubtedly one of the most atmospherically stunning films I have ever seen, and probably the best filmed debut I can think of since Tarkovsky debuted with Ivan's Childhood), von Trier seemed to be more of a technical director than one capable of telling a compelling story (similar claims have been used to describe Stanley Kubrick, an argument I'll never understand).

Being a technical director, that would imply an inability to direct actors, which was confirmed with his early work, some of his actors admitted to feeling more like parts of the scenery than actual characters. The apparently exquisite acting from "The Kingdom" also can't be attributed to von Trier, who's crippling fear of hospitals led him to hiring Morten Arnfred to do most of the directing of actors in the series while he remained far away from the underground corridors prominently featured in the series.

That returns me to Antichrist. How in the world did von Trier coax such unbelievable performances out of Willem Dafoe, and especially Charlotte Gainsbourg. The jury at Cannes may have utterly loathed the film, but still gave the best actress award to Gainsbourg, the second for a leading actress in a von Trier film, the other being Björk from Dancer In The Dark.

I can only imagine that von Trier has grown as a director in ways that have unfortunately gone overlooked. In films like Element and Europa, von Trier's actors are completely over the top in their performances. This is fitting for the outlandish settings, one taking place in a vaguely sci-fi noir film, the other being a post World War 2 film, in which the foreground and the background were filmed at separate times, in separate countries, by separate crews. While these films are fantastic, and a wonder to simply look at, von Trier doesn't get enough credit for making Antichrist a disturbingly natural (satanic, if you will) affair despite being a supernatural gore flick.

Also deserving of credit is how von Trier can politely nod to his heroes without trying to be them. I liken this to Woody Allen, whose love of Bergman is much less critical than von Trier's (this is a man who once claimed that Bergman might as well be dead to the horror of the Swedish press present) is quick to refer to his idol without trying to be him. As I mentioned in my review of Hannah And Her Sisters, Allen essentially remakes The Seventh Seal with one of the stories sub-plots without ripping the classic film off.

Von Trier never goes that far (I'm not actually sure he's capable of such a feat), but he's a director who is easily accused of wearing his references on his sleeve. Europa has the clear pacing and build up of a great Hitchcock movie, The Five Obstructions is actually von Trier challenging one of his favorite directors to remake an old short film of the director (again, creativity emerges from restriction) and the Tarkovsky dedicated Antichrist makes clear use of a few shots from the Russian master's semi-autobiographic The Mirror.

But these references never consume von Trier films the way they seem to in films by directors like Quentin Tarantino (or, if I chose to be honest with myself, the earlier films of Woody Allen's career). Tarantino's films feel like a jumble of nerd-chic, but von Trier's allusions seem to focus more on how these particular films influenced his output. Thinking of the reclusive von Trier watching the reverential Tarkovsky film is almost melancholy, not merely a reference for the sake of making a reference.

To wrap this article up, I'm excited for von Trier's next cinematic venture. So far, what is known is that the film will be called Melancholia, and joining Gainsbourg's second go with the director will be Kirsten Dunst (replacing the equally bizarre choice of Penelope Cruz who saw calmer waters jumping on board the newest Pirates of the Caribbean movie, undoubtedly for a boatload of money). It's a sci-fi film of sorts, and what that entails in a von Trier film will be fun to see. Additionally, von Trier has added that the film would not contain a happy ending like his past few films, a statement that can only lead his fans to ask, "What?"

Panique au village (A Town Called Panic) (2009)

In a year when emerging technologies dominated the popular film landscape, it's curious that stop motion films also enjoyed a comeback in 2009. Then again, the 3D craze that gripped movie-goers is itself a throwback to kitschy 50 films. In any case, when Pixar and Dreamworks are dominating the animated scene with big budget, computer generated affairs, films like Wes Anderson's incredibly entertaining The Fantastic Mr. Fox and Coraline (which I haven't seen, but for a stop motion film to earn as much as that did is extremely impressive) have been a welcome addition to the film landscape (not to say anything too bad about Pixar, Up was quite excellent). And then there's a movie like the Belgian film Panique Au Village, based on the show of the same title.

If stop motion films have the inherent quality of being shaky and jerky, Panique elevates this more to being in an earthquake than airplane turbulence. The original show episodes were about 5 minutes long, and they were filled with constant motion and humor. Imagine that stretched to about an hour and a half.

I was initially worried that people used to making shows so short would struggle to make a story interesting enough to watch for over an hour. I wasn't expecting a great story, mind you, just simply something to hold together the incredible, incessant action on the screen. Miraculously, the filmmakers achieved this perfectly.

The story follows the characters Horse, Cowboy and Indian, as does the show. In the film, Horse, the responsible member of the trios' household pursues a romantic interest in his music teacher, while Cowboy and Indian simply run amok. The film begins with them realizing that they have forgotten Horse's birthday ("Same as every June 21"), and their panicked attempt to find him a gift quickly. Their gift ends up destroying their house, which they must then rebuild. When their rebuilt house is continuously stolen at night while they sleep at a neighbor's home, they set out for an adventure.

What makes the film so interesting is undoubtedly attributable to the film's roots as a 5 minute television show. As a result, there isn't so much a plot as a bunch of small adventures that happen consecutively. Every 10-15 minutes, it almost feels like a different movie. And each little story is as frenetically fun as the one before it.

If I could describe this movie in one word, it would be "fun". The animation is top notch, given how much work had to be put into all the scenes, and as a package, the film is just excellent at every level. I can't analyze this film too seriously though, just because it was mindless fun, and nothing more. Unlike a lot of Hollywood films that attempt the mindless fun approach, however, Panique isn't stupid, it's just absurd. From the films I've seen from 2009 now, I would probably place this only behind Antichrist, and The White Ribbon as far as favorites go (with the previously mentioned Anderson film also somewhere near the top).

Movies I Saw Drunk: The Blind Side (2009)

Last night, my girlfriend and I got really drunk and headed to the dollar theater, choosing to see whatever movie was playing next. Unfortunately for us, that movie was the Sandra Bullock drama, The Blind Side. This wasn't so much a movie as an extended commercial for Under Armor, Taco Bell, Border's and the South.

Almost none of this movie wasn't offensive. Constantly, the other main character, the essentially orphaned Micheal Oher, is paired with children. Despite the fact that the film seems to be about working hard to achieve your goals, he doesn't seem to be allowed to function above a child's mental level outside of his classes.

Someday I hope to buy the rights to this film so I can rename it UNDER ARMOR PRESENTS: White Guilt. The audience is expected to side behind Bullock's character, who takes in the wayward Oher, but her character, like almost all the characters in this film, is utterly repulsive. Her part has been written in such a way to grant her the most redeeming role in every scene. As a result, Bullock hasn't so much acted well as played a genuinely good character. But it's this goodness that distracts; it feels so artificial and manipulative.

Ultimately, that's what the film is: manipulative. None of the characters feel real, none of the dialogue feels real, it just feels like a construction intended on producing guilt and drama. I didn't stay for the end, and judging by how it was going 2 hours into the film, I'm not convinced that it does end, but I think it's important to note that this is the first film I've ever walked out on (Avatar would have been the first had the ticket not been so expensive).

In any case, I'm seeing A Town Called Panic tonight, and that should be much better:

The Hurt Locker (2009)

Here's a film I've been meaning to see since about November that I just today finally got around to seeing. Unfortunately, the quality of the film did not correspond too well with my desire to see it. Hurt Locker is far from a bad movie, but it's also not at risk of being a masterpiece.

If I could describe Hurt Locker in as few words as possible, I would just call it a fantastic war movie. However, that's much different than calling it a fantastic movie. Apocalypse Now! is a movie set during a war, but I would never think of it as a war movie, because the inner struggles of the lead characters are so much more important than the actual war story. Same goes for a movie like The Thin Red Line or Rescue Dawn.

That isn't the case with Hurt Locker. The characters are all pretty well rounded, but almost all of the character development is saved until about the last half hour when all the characters have to suddenly come to terms with various issues. When resolution for the lead character finally comes, it's delivered in an unfortunately heavy handed speech to an infant while holding a jack-in-the-box. Best Picture material, naturally.

So, war movie. Under this criterion, the film shines gloriously. The audience never has to deal with dull generals, no scenes depict officials trying to create the perfect plan to defeat the enemy, nothing of that sort occurs. Instead, there is the simple concept that everyday brings new challenges, and in war, this means life or death. That makes the movie tense, as it often is. The movie follows a unit that neutralizes bombs (which the opposing forces seem all too willing to take their time in detonating).

I don't really know much about Kathryn Bigelow, but her direction here is pretty top notch (a quick glance at Wikipedia informs me that 1) she directed that surfer movie with Keanue Reaves, and 2) she was married to James Cameron, no doubt 2 mistakes). The cinematography is really quite excellent, and even the firefight scenes aren't especially dull thanks to the camera work.

As a film, I have no real complaints about The Hurt Locker. It's not a bad movie. I would even call it a good movie, but nothing more. It's not incredibly unique in its approach, but at least it isn't entirely riddled with cliche. Also, any movie that takes awards away from Avatar is fine by me. I think it fails in its lofty attempts to be a brainy war flick, but succeeds in separating itself from the glut of action heavy war movies. I would put it on par with a movie like Jarhead, which I actually thought was surprisingly good.

Das weiße Band (The White Ribbon) (2009)

Michael Haneke, to put it lightly, is difficult. His newest feature, (which unfortunately just came to Eugene this week) Das weiße Band, 2009 Golden Palm winner at Cannes, is no exception. The only way I know how to describe it is imagining Bela Tarr had directed Haneke's earlier film Cache, which made a surprising number of best films of the 00's lists.

The film moves at a very deliberate pace, yet never fails to engage. All the characters are fully developed. The dialogue is natural. The acting is tremendous, especially considering the extensive use of child actors in key roles.

It's the last point that I find most entrancing about the film (other than the spectacular camera work, a strong point in any Haneke film). The ensemble cast consists of a large number of children, and their acting generally outshines all but a few of their adult counterparts. Interestingly, the intrigue of the ability of these child actors is reflected in the perplexing narrative, which remains up for interpretation, as is generally the case in Haneke's films.

The movie itself tells the tale of a small German town on the eve of the first world war (a fact that's never really made clear until a character learns of Ferdinand's assassination about 2/3 of the way into the movie). In the town, a number of unexplained accidents happen, and the locals are terrified.

The viewer is left with nothing with questions by the end of the film. Like other Haneke films, the ultimate question is whether or not the questions the audience likely leaves with matter in the first place (I'm being intentionally vague in this review so as not to spoil anything). By not bringing reconciliation in an expected way, Haneke is really attacking the very cinematic idea of closure.

Haneke is a master filmmaker, and this is him at his finest. I'm not going to suggest that I was utterly blown away by the time the credits ran, but this movie really was next to perfect. From the preview, this made me think it would be something like The Village, without being awful. And in actuality, that's kind of what it was. Haneke presents the same kind of small village paranoia in a subtle way incomprehensible in mainstream American film as of late.

Given how incredibly excellent this film was (though, ultimately, I don't think it unseated Antichrist as my favorite film of 2009), I'm really excited to see El secreto de sus ojos, which nabbed the Oscar for best foreign language film this year (at which point I turned off the TV to avoid having to look at James Cameron anymore).

Festen (The Celebration) (1998)

In 1995, Thomas Vinterberg and Lars von Trier released the Dogme 95 manifesto into the cinema world by means of flyers thrown at a Parisian audience during a talk von Trier was giving to commemorate the first century of film history. The most prominent feature of the manifesto (one of many that von Trier has written) is the "Vow of Chastity", which is a sort of 10 commandments for film. The list is simply ridiculous, with rules like cameras must be handheld (preferably digital), all music must be recorded live, no props are allowed unless they are found on the site, everything must be filmed on site, and greatest of all, the director can never be credited.

In 1998, Dogme #1 was released, Thomas Vinterberg's The Celebration. Dogme actually had a board certify the films, which can be found in numeric order on their website (though the group has since disbanded).

The Vow was intended to reintroduce the element of realism into film (assuming it wasn't simply an elaborate prank being played by von Trier and co, seeing as how many of the Dogme founders never directed more than one Dogme film). However, it simply works as a stylistic guide for a specific aesthetic. Were the Dogme filmmakers really concerned with the lack of realism in Hollywood movies, the omission of any rules related to editing seem to negate any attempted realism (jump cuts aplenty!).

With all of that said, Vinterberg's debut feature is an absolute gem. Winner of the Jury prize at Cannes that year, Festen was justly praised on its release. No matter how gimmicky the Dogme "movement" was, films like this almost justify its extravagant scope (I'm sure there are plenty of Dogme duds, but so far, I've seen 3 and loved them all).

As for the film itself, I think it might just be one of the most depressing pieces put to film. The movie is about a family and their friends gathered for the 60th birthday of their patriarch. Like all Danish families, no doubt, this one has an unbearably dark past. Just minutes into the film, we discover that the father's grown children, spread out in various walks of life, are recently recovering from the death of a sister. Her twin seems the most rattled, while the youngest brother apparently didn't even attend the funeral. Domestic squabbles and family revelations abound in this film.

The setup of the film reminds me very much of France's golden cinema cow, Jean Renoir's La Règle du jeu, a film whose reputation I've never quite agreed with, but is a worthwhile watch anyway. Basically, there is a house full of people who have unknowingly agreed to enjoy themselves no matter what, and one rebel who is out to reveal the demon in the crowd.

What makes Festen so successful is a few things. One is the stylized look, naturally. What would become trite in just a few years was new and fascinating at this point. Secondly, the utterly fantastic characters, who are more well rounded, flawed, tragic than any film I can recall. Finally, the unrestrained content of the film is really shocking. The issues discussed in this movie (which I will not speak too much of, I would much rather you see the film for yourself, and say "Oh my god!" just as I did) are simply not addressed in films, and I really wonder why.

What really shocked me about the movie, other than the family secrets being revealed, was the very subtle humor. While I would gladly describe the movie as utterly depressing, it definitely doesn't go without taking a few jabs here and there, and by the end, you kind of hate Danish people. Well, more than you already, naturally do.

The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus (2009)

Terry Gilliam makes a movie with "Imaginarium" in the title and casts Tom Waits as the devil. This sounds as close to a slam dunk as a movie can be. Unfortunately, Parnassus is more of a shot clock violation. The ideas get passed around so much that Gilliam forgets to take a shot.

There is a lot to like in Gilliam's newest film, from the exquisite cast (minus Verne Troyer, who delivers his witty lines like a particularly bland board), to the premise of the film, which involves an immortal monk making wagers with Mr. Nick/Satan to protect his family, while the rest of the cast gets to spend a lot of their time inside a fantasy land.

However, the fantastic elements just aren't that imaginative. Maybe it was just CGI overkill, but I found the film to be at it's least interesting in the dream-like imaginarium, which should really be Gilliam's strength. And as dull as I found Avatar, that technology showcase masquerading as a narrative, actors submersed in CGI landscapes in any other movie just looks silly in comparison. Watching this after watching James Cameron's film, which undoubtedly cost the GDP of various small countries was like watching Jurassic Park on TV. Had this film not relied so heavily on these technical elements, it could have been much stronger, but instead gets handicapped by its already dated appearance.

I would consider myself a fan of Gilliam's work. Brazil is one of my absolute favorite films (watch for Brazil lead Jonathan Pryce to make a brief cameo during Parnassus). It's a well established fact that Gilliam knows his way around an imagination as only someone like Tim Burton could hope for (the jury is still out on whether Gilliam or Burton will make Johnny Depp: The Movie first). But Parnassus seems more like the uninspired work of latter day Burton than Gilliam, minus the fact that it's not a remake (not that Gilliam has been at the top of his game lately, and I'll admit to greatly enjoying Sweeney Todd).

All in all, Parnassus is a surprisingly tight narrative, with generally good acting, but it just never really becomes anything great. It's not Gilliam's worst film, but it's far from his best. I think of this more as a step in the right direction than a great movie. Gilliam is indeed returning to the silliness and imagination of his older movies, it's just a matter of quality that's the issue.