Lars Von Trier is a bit of a hot button figure these days, but he’s also in the zone as never before. His most ambitious film yet, the apocalypse fable Melancholia has garnered him more praise than any of his other films, perhaps all of them combined. It’s the jewel of a new retrospective at TIFF Bell Lightbox subtitled Waiting for the End of the World, an apt description for Von Triers’ troubled world view and film career.
Banishment Versus Artistry
He’s an original, as famous for his idiosyncratic and wildly diverse films as he is infamous for making reckless and ill-considered remarks he made at Cannes last May concerning his sympathy for Hitler. He was widely condemned and banned from Cannes, but eventually issued a formal apology.
But there’s no denying the man’s talent. This week, he was nominated for eight of nine categories in the European Film Awards for Melancholia. Von Trier defies expectations at every turn and the result is vexing to say the least.
Dogme 95
It’s hard to pin him down to a style, theme, world view or genre. He “founded” the Dogme 95 style of filmmaking (no artificial lighting, makeup, music, dialogue and sets, etc.) but he made only one film in the Dogme discipline, The Idiots. Von Trier makes dark, often hopeless films and then he tosses out an hysterical office workplace comedy The Boss of It All. And then it’s back to his trademark pit of darkness, for a while at least. Von Trier’s films don’t make money, in fact they routinely lose money, but his circle of fans is growing and he keeps making his films without compromise.
Who is Von Trier?
He is described as controversial but other words come to mind like mercurial, iconoclastic and individualistic. From The Boss of It All to the end-of-the world meditation Melancholia, two films on supposed mental illness, Dancer in the Dark, starring Bjork, and The Idiots, the nearly setless Dogville and Manderlay and the haunting, Europa, Von Trier’s changeable, curious and driven nature is clear. So that’s something we know.
The Lost Closing Chapter
Some time ago, Von Trier was fully focussed on his America trilogy, and made Dogville and Manderlay but abandoned the closing chapter Wasington. He said he was suffering from melancholia and was taking an indefinite break from filmmaking. Antichrist was next; a disturbing and sadistically graphic drama that put him in the hot seat but died a quick death.
A New Start
Melancholia brings to the surface the doubts and fears that have apparently bedevilled him. It may be his most accessible work, and his most acclaimed. It’s a contemporary fable about the end of the world from the point of view of a family gathered in a stately rural manor in some unnamed place. At points Melancholia is completely conventional, at others, it’s breathtakingly surreal, magical, other worldly and death-obsessed. Imagine a planet falling into the earth; imagine knowing it’s going to happen and the fear and waiting. Von Trier captures that anxiety in ways that are realistic and human.
Legacy
Von Trier is a force to be reckoned with, a master, a thinker and a guy with a sense of humour and loose lips. There is a lot to this man as an artist and a person. He is capable of great things, and he’s a true artist with vision who acknowledges our flaws and his own and translates them to entertaining, often riveting and always provocative films that will let the world know he was here. TIFF Bell Lightbox is doing its part with a rare retrospective of Von Trier’s best known films in its ten day mini festival.
Anne Brodie - I review films each week on Corus and Rogers TV and for Metro News Canada, AskMen.com and Monsters and Critics. I profile celebrities for ...
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