Bring Me the Head of Lars Von Trier
No cinema visits this week and not many DVDs either. My excuse is that the first one is five hours long. It is, of course…
Riget (1994)
Also known as The Kingdom. And also known as Stephen King’s Kingdom Hospital, although as a longstanding Stephen King fan, I’ve spurned this American remake as I would spurn a rabid dog. In the wake of Europa (1991), Lars Von Triers’ self-conscious attempt to create a masterpiece, he decided instead to work on a supernatural TV series set in a soap opera style hospital and abandon excessive technique. Out went storyboards, back projection and actors as robots and in came hand held cameras, rapid fire jump cut editing and actors given the space to deliver actual performances. What to say about all of this is that the “realistic” aesthetic that results is as much of a construction as that which had been achieved with all the pre-planning. But the end result is the real thing: a crazy story that swerves sharply between seriously creepy horror and totally zany grossout comedy. Each helps to ground the other instead of cancelling each other out. What makes the comedy work is that the horror is played absolutely straight, and what makes the horror work is that the comedy teeters right on the edge of tastelessness and then goes gleefully over it. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll hurl, indeed.
Breaking the Waves (1996)
In which Lars Von Trier becomes the great filmmaker he was always intent on talking himself up to be. This is an astonishing achievement, and it has lost none of its power 11 years later. Utililising the same hand held jump cut madness that informed Riget (1994) (though hinting at self-consciousness with a series of chapter break interludes set to 70s rock classics), Von Trier captures an emotional reality from his performers that is almost too painful to bear. There is a sense that as an audience we are intruding on private moments in private lives that were never meant to have been filmed and never should have been. And yet there they are. How must it feel to be Emily Watson, 28 years old, in your first film, knowing that you will perhaps never find a role as unique as this in the rest of your acting career? How must it feel to be Lars Von Trier, to find that you’ve achieved by learning to direct actors what you could never have achieved by focusing on storyboards, camera technique and lighting an entire film with sodium vapour lamps intended to light Scottish motorways? Von Trier finds his centre as a filmmaker, Emily Watson is nominated for an Oscar, and the future looks very bright indeed. Breaking the Waves is one of the most extraordinary films ever made, a breathtaking, inadvertent masterpiece of the highest order. If you haven’t seen it, put it at #1 on your 1001 films to watch before you die list. You don’t want to miss this one.
July 22nd, 2007 at 10:18 pm
What exactly are you planning on doing with all of these directors’ heads? I know almost for certain that Von Trier’s head will not get along with Tony Scott’s. The combination will be somehow fluorescent and depressing, with alternating jump-cuts and long, meditative stares.
July 23rd, 2007 at 10:48 am
Credit where it’s due - ‘The Kingdom’ was a joint project between Von Trier and Morten Arnfred, and they’re both credited as co-directors.
It’s especially important to acknowledge Arnfred’s contribution, as by all accounts he did most of the actual work - Von Trier reportedly lost interest at a relatively early stage. But that’s the pernicious influence of the auteur theory for you.
Oh, and you were right to avoid the US remake - I watched the pilot and it was dire.