Yes, I Understand That Lars Von Trier Is A Dumbass. Go And See "Melancholia," Anyway.

The staff here at Movie Feast loves cult cinema and our readers are the beneficiaries (or victims) of our preferred viewing habits. However that doesn't mean that we don't pay attention to important events in mainstream cinema.

Case in point.

Unless you live under a rock or something, you've probably read dozens of articles concerning the controversial comments of Lars Von Trier, director of films such as Dancer In The Dark and Antichrist.

I won't run over old ground here by repeating Von Trier's rather insouciant and reckless commentary, suffice to say that I personally feel that they were the inane ramblings of someone trying to sell a movie under the impression that any publicity is good publicity.

The problem is that like some directors (or artists in general), Von Trier best expresses himself through his work (or worst if you've read Evil Ash's review of Antichrist). You cannot give people like that a microphone and expect good things to happen. For better or worse, guys like that have a habit of saying exactly what is on their mind.

The addage of "If you don't have something nice to say...." is lost on these folks.

The tragedy here is the potential backlash towards his latest film, the apocalyptic sci-fi exposition known as Melancholia. It is inevitable that resistance to show this movie (or the overwhelming desire to put it on a screen) will be driven by reaction to Trier's comments instead of reaction to the film. As with anyone else's work, I am sure that there will be reasons to either love or hate Melancholia that have absolutely nothing to do with Von Trier's ill-timed comments.

Decisions about the merits of Melancholia should be drawn from the film itself rather than the puerile and idiotic statements of Von Trier. Von Trier's banter only shows that he chose the right profession when he decided to be a director.

His career as a stand-up comedian would've gone up in flames his first time onstage.

As for the question of whether or not I support the Cannes executive board to ban Von Trier, the answer is "absolutely." I don't reward bad behavior in my household from my daughter so why should the Cannes executive board? Let Von Trier tell Nazi jokes on his own time in his own home around people that understand where he is coming from.

If he can't conduct himself in a public forum in a manner expected from a professional, then he needs to stay out of the public eye or at least hire a good publicist to speak for him at these sorts of events.

I think I feel the sorriest for the Israeli distributor of Von Trier's work. It is going to be a quiet summer for that guy.

Antichrist (2009)

The 29th Atlantic Film Festival



Some thoughts on Lars Von Trier's new film, Antichrist, which screened on Friday, September 26th at the Oxford Theatre, Halifax, as part of the 29th Atlantic Film Festival:

About midway through Lars Von Trier's Antichrist, Willem Dafoe (He) runs across a fox, which is in the process of tearing its own guts out. That is one hell of a creepy image, and the audience was notably disturbed. Von Trier follows this up by having the fox turn to the camera and declaring, in its best heavy metal voice, "Chaos Reigns!", at which point the audience burst into laughter. And with good reason; that shit was fucking ridiculous.

Antichrist is a pretty bad movie. Having read several reviews, the closest I've come to being convinced that it's actually a good movie stems from the argument some are making that it's actually a comedy. You're supposed to laugh at the film's heavy-handed symbolism, or the opening idyllic scene that's shot in the same fashion as a De Beers diamond solitaire commercial (or that "arty" Mr. Plow commercial from The Simpsons). That almost had me reconsidering things...until I realized that, even if that were the case, there are a dozen other filmmakers out there making horror-comedies (or action-comedies, or whatever) much, much better.

I'd hate to (merely) rag on a film, so I will say that it at least shows that Von Trier has the chops to make a great film. Some of the images are quite haunting, and one chapter of the film, "Grief", is actually quite good human drama. Much of it is, in fact, very well shot and very well acted; had those talents been used for a much better script, I'd have been happy.

I actually like films that disturb. I even like some films which sole purpose seems to be to disturb. I am less a fan of uneven, puerile films, and I think Antichrist falls into that category. A lot of arthouse hipsters are going to come to the defense of this one, claiming its artistic merit and disparaging the pleebs who can't understand it. And that's kinda funny.