Dancer in the Dark (2000)

            Von Trier seems incapable of not pushing the modern movie making boundaries in any film he does.  The intoxicating carnality of Antichrist is a testament to his depression.  The Five Obstructions has him literally forcing another filmmaker to experiment.  And his co-creation of Dogme 95 is only the beginning.  So the fact that he employed over 100 cameras for his 2000 musical was just another notch on his belt.

            Bjork stars as an immigrant working a dangerous factory job with deteriorating eyesight to pay for an operation so her son doesn't follow in her footsteps.  She also has a love for musicals where the characters break out into song for no apparent reason and plot elements are satisfactorily concluded, at least for their characters.  In this film, the musical numbers are set within the construct of the mind, and in their conclusion, we return to the unchanged diegetic world and nothing has been resolved to the benefit of the protagonist.  Rather, it was just a bunch of singing and dancing existing entirely as escapist fare.

        It was von Trier’s attempt to shoot this musical numbers, with the 100 customized Cinemascope-ish lenses, as a live event.  With this number of cameras running the event would only have to happen once and could be cut in real time.  DVD interviews show von Trier displeased with the failure of his experiment.  The rest of the film is not representative of the failure von Trier talks about.  The harsh elements Bjork encounters only expand to the point of no return.  Von Trier makes the point clear that in his musical, singing and dancing will not overturn the narrative course of events and that even such usually good-natured fun can end sour.

            It is another case of von Trier pushing his female leads to the extreme and on-set relations between the two are notoriously strained.  The film strays from the usual cheery lighting of commercial musicals thus grounding the film a bit further in reality.  In fact, it would be safer to not to call it a musical but rather a dramatic and depressing narrative with self-mocking musical interludes.

Random Thoughts on Antichrist

The opening sequence of Lars von Trier’s Antichrist is purely cinematic. Extreme slow motion is set to an operatic backdrop rendering passionate intercourse and the death of a child both haunting and beautiful. The unnamed couple lose their only son to an open window during the distraction of sex in what is clearly a carefully orchestrated and conducted introduction to a film the strays greatly from this initial beauty. Trier focuses on the extreme reaction by the mother to the self-blaming death of her child. And while the film sets itself up as a familiar psychodrama of death and grief, we know from the title the more sinister intentions are in store.

After retreating to a cabin buried in the depths of a foreboding and uninviting woods, the therapist husband and distraught wife manage a cohabitation wrought with denied episodes of distraught sexuality and ominous visitations of animal suffering. In all attempt to help his wife heal, he only discovers her inability to care for the child during its life. Evil makes its presence known, if the title of the film didn’t demand it already. But Trier’s film is far from the torture porn and senseless violence of commercial fare. It is even farther from the immature and gawking sexual exploits of college targeted gross-outs. But to consider the film a simple horror film would be to discredit the intensity of its images. The sex and violence, and sexual violence demands more than a casual aside. It is extremely difficult to write of the film without ruining it, but simply put, it has not left my mind and will occupy an uncomfortable place for some time.

Lars von Trier suffered from depression during the making of the film. And if this is any indication of the nauseating and miserable tone achieved, then it comes as no surprise that the film has become both heavily praised and massively criticized. Perhaps it's the director at helm, but more likely the film would have found itself at the top and bottom of lists despite who designed it or when it was made.

The presence of nature is never wholly comforting yet consistently achieves a mesmerizing, at times hypnotic, effect. The distorted and melding landscape obscured by fog, growing in and out of itself, becomes a main player in the film. More than a motif, the roots and branches of the surrounding fauna seem inescapable. Whether they be dirt particles gently falling from the roots of a plant in water or the black branches that deliver blows to a baby bird as it falls to its death, the natural life-giving plants are firmly connected to both sex and death. Beneath the dark and dirty tree of life, he and she copulate in front of the hands reaching out from the roots. It is here, in a fox hole meant for protection, that he repeatedly beats a crow to death only to find its cawing marking its return to life. Much the same, the fox who so pathetically disembowels itself still manages a short and un-pained utterance. What makes this film’s connection to the natural world so interesting is that humans are thrust into its presence and are bombarded by its power at nearly ever moment.

Antichrist is the only film I ever recall being afraid to see. And while my imagined expectations outweighed the final product this in no way suggests said product was tame. The film is fierce in misogynistic viewpoints and blatant in its confusing sexual content. Perhaps the work of the devil demands violence, if so this film is the place. And while the few hours since viewing it have left me perplexed as to my reaction, I can only take this as benefit to the film for developing such intriguing and perplexing content of which I hesitantly want to explore.

Thoughts on the Auteur

In “The Cult of the Auteur” Robert Stam recounts the introduction of the auteur theory to the American public by way of Andrew Sarris. Stam discusses not only the critical reactions to such an idea but the requirements of the theory as well. The article almost instantly becomes a thorough introduction to the theory itself for anyone unfamiliar with how engrained it has become in our modern commercial filmmaking industry. As much as I cringe to admit it, this article was one of my first in-depth looks into the idea of the auteur, or at least specifically by that name. Yet for any one at least minimally familiar with the film industry and the placement of film in our society as a whole, the idea of the auteur seems self-evident.

Countless modern films are marketed by listing the director’s partial filmography in the trailer. The studios seem to understand, and much marketing research likely supports that audiences who like a film will probably enjoy something similar. At times, it becomes a point of pride to identify whose latest film one will see. And much of the time, expectations about upcoming features will be heavily influenced about what creative minds are involved. Even if, in the case of Antichrist, the minds involved have a history of depression preventing work and social obligations from being maintained. This marks our arrival at Lars von Trier, a self-promoting and mentally afflicted Danish filmmaker whose auteurship is far from debated. In this 2009 release, von Trier’s connection to the Dogme 95 collective is self-evident as the main characters interact as if in real life, the camera simply documented their escalating struggles. Certain scenes, whether actually adhering to the strict mandates of Dogme 95, appear natural and unadulterated. Further, Trier, whose often describes as visually distinctive, manages to blend the aforementioned realism with the otherworldly and haunting discomfort of an evil forest.

Yet auteurism is more than each film looking the same. Perhaps an auteur-to-the-extreme would find each and every one of his films a carbon copy of its predecessor. Conversely, Antichrist’s tone suggests a filmmaker in confusion, perhaps disarray. Be it the intense violence without need of graphic accompaniment, the brutal and misdirected sexuality, or the eerily unforgettable horror of the woods, the fact the von Trier suffered from depression while making this film only makes sense. Criticized for blatant misogyny, the film explores the gender relations of countless years in modern context with what seem ancient roots. The film, while in fact having Trier’s name written in uncomfortable handprint, would have his name all over it regardless. What I find interesting here is how the process of filmmaking, as well as the mental processes surrounding it, influences the final product. Immediately evident is that filmmaking is indeed a process, not a simple and immediate product. And, to hammer it further, such a process needs direction or else it will falter and fade. Thus the auteur, the film’s ultimate author, directs this process to his or her preference. The Wizard of Oz notably passed creative hands many times before finally residing with Victor Fleming. Von Trier’s film, conversely, was scripted and envisioned by the director and nothing about the ultimate mood achieved seems to suggest otherwise.

Auteurism, as I understand it, becomes directly linked to he whom most self-exposes in the final product. Film and filmmaker are inextricably linked by common effort and desire. In the end, much the same as any other desire to create something tangible, film succeeds in immortalizing its creator. At least for the moment.