Lars Von Trier – The House that Jack Built

[zoltanspawn]

Ooh, my LVT chub, chubs.

 

[MakeDigitalLove]

Re: Post something just for the heck of it

Holy shit that trailer.

 

[MakeDigitalLove]

Re: Post something just for the heck of it

Holy shit that trailer.

But now reading why people have been walking out on this movie, good chance I won’t see it.

 

[zoltanspawn]

Re: Post something just for the heck of it

But now reading why people have been walking out on this movie, good chance I won’t see it.

I suppose a lot of people haven't seen Anti-Christ or the extended Nymphomaniac. If LVT's bitter pill isn't emotional or spiritual, it's material.

I fully expect an LVT movie about a serial killer to be upsetting.

 

[MakeDigitalLove]

Re: Post something just for the heck of it

I suppose a lot of people haven't seen Anti-Christ or the extended Nymphomaniac. If LVT's bitter pill isn't emotional or spiritual, it's material.

I fully expect an LVT movie about a serial killer to be upsetting.

Oh me too, I'm very familiar and this doesn't surprise. I did watch the extended version of Nymphomaniac and really, really liked it. I just personally know I can't handle the subject matter that he usually produces. I purposely do not watch Anti-Christ because of the mutilation scene.

Though, I think this speaks volumes about violence in media. Is that when it gets too real, people really can't handle it. That when it comes most horror movies, the gore and violence is so lame in comparison to LVT films, where is actually makes you feel awful and disgusted. Which one should be.

I mean the article I read about talked about other films people walked out of during Cannes, one of them being Irreversible and I totally get that because that movie is rough, but I personally love that film as well. And I generally cannot handle scenes like that, that are extended where it becomes exploitation.

 

[zoltanspawn]

Re: Post something just for the heck of it

Oh me too, I'm very familiar and this doesn't surprise. I did watch the extended version of Nymphomaniac and really, really liked it. I just personally know I can't handle the subject matter that he usually produces. I purposely do not watch Anti-Christ because of the mutilation scene.

Though, I think this speaks volumes about violence in media. Is that when it gets too real, people really can't handle it. That when it comes most horror movies, the gore and violence is so lame in comparison to LVT films, where is actually makes you feel awful and disgusted. Which one should be.

I mean the article I read about talked about other films people walked out of during Cannes, one of them being Irreversible and I totally get that because that movie is rough, but I personally love that film as well. And I generally cannot handle scenes like that, that are extended where it becomes exploitation.

I find nothing gratuitous or exploitative about von Trier's work. He works in the service of ideas. He's ambitious and he's got something to say cinematically; sometimes he fails. He is always interesting.

The violence we can expect is the same violence we know from Salo, a sickening excess meant to illuminate the curves and depths of our human form. He makes the kind of work that might show us who we are, and with a nudge change us. Meanwhile, Mel Gibson vomits his insipid fantasies of fumbling spattergore and the pipsqueaks in the theaters low like cattle; his "masterpieces" just make people stupid. Stupider. After so much repetition, nay conditioning, from Hollywood a real shock seems like a reprieve.

LVT gives us the pleasure of having enjoyed his vision for so long, too. I'm eager to see his new movie, built on his already rather incredible edifice.

He says he made the film "to celebrate the idea that life is evil and soulless." I suspect it's just such a celebration. It's also a welcome one, as a correction to the endless narratives of goodness and beatitude that people so desperately cling to. If it loosens viewers' grips just a little bit from their hold on their Disney-fied way of thinking they'll end up more human.

As to the particulars of the violence, I'm not eager to endure it. LVT's violence is real, and hard to handle, and I squinted my eyes a couple times during Anti-Christ and just about lost it during Gainsbourg's self-surgery. But those are just particulars.

I guess that after the hundred people walked out on The House That Jack Built in Cannes, the remainders in the audience gave it a standing ovation.

 

[belamyi]

Re: Post something just for the heck of it

You can find more evil and soullessness in certain political declarations than in the whole "career" of a serial killer: if you take the road along the premises and original endings of fables of the Mr. Smith Goes To Washington or I Am Legend sort, you will delve much deeper into the general, social, human mindless evil rooted in the apparent righteousness of humanity, and the willful hope surrounding its destiny, and it will hurt and scandalize the viewers far more than the contemplation of the crimes and perversions of an isolated serial killer.

 

[zoltanspawn]

Re: Post something just for the heck of it

You can find more evil and soullessness in certain political declarations than in the whole "career" of a serial killer: if you take the road along the premises and original endings of fables of the Mr. Smith Goes To Washington or I Am Legend sort, you will delve much deeper into the general, social, human mindless evil rooted in the apparent righteousness of humanity, and the willful hope surrounding its destiny, and it will hurt and scandalize the viewers far more than the contemplation of the crimes and perversions of an isolated serial killer.

If you take that road, probably, yes. But I suppose there is something figurative about Dillon's character which raises him above the "isolation" of a serial killer. And doubtless, this is a punch in the guts, not Hollywood pap.

 

[belamyi]

Re: Post something just for the heck of it

If you take that road, probably, yes. But I suppose there is something figurative about Dillon's character which raises him above the "isolation" of a serial killer. And doubtless, this is a punch in the guts, not Hollywood pap.

I have only seen one film of him, Melancholia, by mere chance, on the TV (and I had to check out the ending on Wikipedia to make sure the movie was worth watching until the end): I enjoyed it immensely, and the reason is that I believe that should be an average movie, not an extraordinary one. If LVT delivers "punchs in the guts", maybe it's just that people are either too dull by nature, or too numbed and dumbed by a decadent "culture" who finds, say, The Fate of the Furious, something worth being taken seriously in any [STRIKE]creative[/STRIKE] respect, let alone as "cinema".

 

[zoltanspawn]

Re: Post something just for the heck of it

I have only seen one film of him, Melancholia, by mere chance, on the TV (and I had to check out the ending on Wikipedia to make sure the movie was worth watching until the end): I enjoyed it immensely, and the reason is that I believe that should be an average movie, not an extraordinary one. If LVT delivers "punchs in the guts", maybe it's just that people are either too dull by nature, or too numbed and dumbed by a decadent "culture" who finds, say, The Fate of the Furious, something worth being taken seriously in any [STRIKE]creative[/STRIKE] respect, let alone as "cinema".

Melancholia is probably his most popular film, and although I liked it, it's not my favorite. Maybe you can find Breaking the Waves? I think that's probably his best. And if you enjoy musicals, I think Dancer in the Dark is one of the most successful films ever made, purely for its manipulation of the viewer, which is masterly (although I don't know if you have an emotional life, and it's utterly an emotional film).

LVT does skirt being pop. No, he's not Pasolini. Still, all in all, I regard him as someone you can take seriously in creative cinema.

 

[zoltanspawn]

Re: Post something just for the heck of it

...the general, social, human mindless evil rooted in the apparent righteousness of humanity, and the willful hope surrounding its destiny...

By the way, this is nicely put.

 

[Peloso]

Re: Post something just for the heck of it

My life is something merely to be endured until I get a chance to see the director's cut of this film.

As someone who's been through major depression, I can say he really nailed it with Melancholia.

 

[belamyi]

Re: Post something just for the heck of it

As someone who's been through major depression, I can say he really nailed it with Melancholia.

In what way? I find that sort of film (like On the Beach) rather stimulating, enlivening and "pepping": makes you think of what life is REALLY about.

 

[Cormac135]

From the trailer i thought it was a comedy.

 

[belamyi]

From the trailer i thought it was a comedy.

Yeah, nevermind of "European" the director and the production may be, it's just the usual American horror comedy that has been planted in the global mind of the peoples around the Earth.

 

[Peloso]

Re: Post something just for the heck of it

In what way? I find that sort of film (like On the Beach) rather stimulating, enlivening and "pepping": makes you think of what life is REALLY about.

Yes, I felt cleansed and euphoric after my first viewing of Melancholia. I'm not sure how the emotional dynamics work in regard to that kind of feeling, other than to say it takes a measure of skill to portray an apocalyptic situation without it seeming forced, maudlin, or even laughable. Both Von Trier and actress Kirsten Dunst suffer(ed) from depression, which I'm sure is what made the portrayal of the main character's illness so realistic.

Everybody's depression is different, but for me, there was a certain numbness that results from the constant acute sadness that eventually feels freeing. You no longer care that your rent is due and you don't have it because you've been in bed for three weeks instead of working. There's a morbid kind of peace that results from so much apathy. Miss Dunst captured that perfectly, particularly in the second half of the film.

What struck me the most was the lack of energy she conveyed. Simple things like taking a bath (or just just walking across a room) become nearly impossible. In fact, the bathing scene in particular really impressed me. There is a moment when Justine's sister is helping her into the tub as she wails like a child. Von Trier allows her bare breasts to be exposed, a reminder that this is a grown woman reduced to childlike helplessness, that feeling a baby must have when it's mother's nipple is taken away...suddenly the whole world has ended. That nipple was the only thing in it's simple world that mattered, and now it's gone, and suddenly everything is empty and pointless.

There were so many small moments like that in the film. Early on, during the wedding, while her mother is misbehaving, Dunst's facial expression seems to implode. She knows external events have helped to trigger another depressive episode. (It's like waking up with a charley horse in the morning: you know it's gonna hurt bad in a moment, and there's nothing you can do about it [actually I've found a charley horse can be defeated most of the time if you stretch your calf in the opposite direction, toes up and heel down, before the spasm kicks in ] You can see the disappointed weariness in her face. "Oh no, here we go again."

I never looked at the film as the portrayal of an apocalyptic event. Maybe because I was closer to my last depression when I saw it. To me, it was about depression. Von Trier was too wise to portray the apocalyptic plot points with any kind of spectacle. He telegraphs the ending in the opening montage in the most all-encompassing way possible: a view from space. It's his way of saying don't watch this (meaning the end of the world), watch this (meaning the character of Justine). That said, in not expecting a fire and brimstone climax, I found the film's last few moments to be especially harrowing.

 

[Peloso]

From the trailer i thought it was a comedy.

I think it will be more comic than you'd expect. To show such horrors without humor would nullify them.

Von trier has OCD, and apparently there are several scenes where Jack does too and returns to the scenes of his crimes to clean up his mess, again and again. A friend of mine managed to get into the New York screening a week or so ago and he said there was a lot of humor in it, people were laughing with the film and not at it.