a new lars von trier poll and discussion thread so we can keep all the yelling in one place for a while

melancholia was dogshit

It’s great (Manderlay, that is). That said, I haven’t actually returned to watch it again and it’s probably for the best that Wasington was never completed... But at the time I felt it was on a par with Dogville but for the performances.

No one’s with me on this, but Antichrist is my absolute favourite. Followed by Breaking the Waves and Melancholia.

The masochism of his female characters never reads for me as a flat cruelty or misogyny, it is always overflowing with projective identification and revenge as reparation and women destroying (or trying to) the systems that made them. He’s not playing god with a litany of weak female characters or anything, it’s clear that his (and our) identification is with them and he wants us to feel all this disorganised pain, and it’s very powerful and memorable.

on second thought Melancholia is way better than Breaking the Waves, I really need to rewatch it. and watch Antichrist for the first time

thanx poll

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

The Kingdom is still the correct answer

It’s great (Manderlay, that is).

It's uh ... problematic ... idk if it codes differently for non-Americans in the same vein as the uh, famous bottle opener of yore, but it has similar issues w/r/t race as a lot of the other films do to women's issues. And it that regard, maybe it isn't "misogyny" or "cruelty" but it sure felt that way while I was watching the "let's have horrible things happen to nice women trilogy" ... idk, as I've gotten older, I have a lot less patience for films made by white European men being arty and manipulative through beating people over the head with depictions of trauma that people who aren't white men actually experience.

The Kingdom is still cool. Zentropa was good iirc.

that's kind of why I like Melancholia the most, Kirsten Dunst is resigned and basically happy to die, she's one of his only protagonists that comes out with her dignity intact, *and* for once a female protagonist that takes glee along with LVT at everyone else's misery.

That's ... kinda not what he's all about tho? (Which, fine. Fuck him and all.)

Well, I partially take that back. His career does build up to the realization that women absorb suffering in ways that men are laughably incapable of reaching.

tbh I think I voted for Dancer in the Dark

Well, I mean yeah. Björk.

sticking to my guns and voting for Nympho as it's his culminating work

as I've gotten older, I have a lot less patience for films made by white European men being arty and manipulative through beating people over the head with depictions of trauma

^^^

I don't watch this guy's movies, everything I read about them says his spiel is a highly aestheticized version of some stuff that seemed super intense to me as a teenager and now seems...easy and cheap and cowardly from an artistic standpoint

like, if I need this kind of thing, I can watch "The Last House on the Left" or "Flower of Flesh and Blood" or whatever, stuff that's a little more forthright about where its makers' interests lie

Or something like Mizoguchis films. They're also all about the suffering of women. Like, half of all art is about the suffering of women. Lars von Trier has just always been more explicit about it, but I don't think that's a bad thing.

Voted for Dogville; I've only seen it, Waves, and Melancholia, and/but it's the only one I think I'd willingly watch again.

Like, half of all art is about the suffering of women.

― Frederik B, Saturday, 29 December 2018 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Half of all art in the west is about the suffering of baby jesus. But well done for trying to equate the empathy and humanism of Mizoguchi with the misogyny and tantrums of LvT.

“LVT is like Mizoguchi” is some galaxy brain shit

p sure zero art in the west is about the suffering of baby jesus tbh

Jesus's suffering came later

Mizoguchi is misogynistic as fuck, lol.

I think there's definitely some art about the suffering of baby jesus. The flight into Egypt and stuff like that. + his circumcision?

never even heard either of those stories so I wouldn't say 50% of western art is about those two particular episodes, and whether any suffering was involved with either seems kinda debatable anyway

No, you're absolutely right, I just got a bit distracted. It's just, I'm a church singer, and the sunday on the circumcision of Jesus is one of the weirder sundays of the year...

The circumcision of Jesus is depicted often in western art but depict it as something the baby Jesus is suffering. The account of the circumcision in the bible is very brief.in Catholicism the fact that Jesus was given his name is what's focused on (It's called the feast of the Holy name or something similar).

"It isn't depicted as" should be in there

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/40/Bellini-circumcision-NG1455-fm.jpg/600px-Bellini-circumcision-NG1455-fm.jpg

Hmm…

This wilful mis-representation of my post by ILX's resident art historians has been worth it

Mizoguchi may have perhaps been concern trolling but misogynistic is a reach - especially when using him to explain LvT away.

"concern trolling"?? nah. yes he made many movies about suffering women, but the attitude and the touch is a world away from LVT. slice of life/melodrama vs. sadistic playhouse. LVT's style is certainly valid and he's made lots of good movies but I don't think the comparison holds.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I agree that the comparison doesn't hold, just pretending that Fred had a point for a couple of seconds.

I’m the one who voted Epidemic. Glad Medea got a vote and that The Kingdom won.

Well, a third series of the The Kingdom certainly wasn't on my list of predictions for 2021 but there you have it.

😳

omg really?????

oh FRABJOUS MOTHERFUCKING DAY

shame half of the o.g. cast are dead, like

Danskjävlar!

yes. yes they are.

Hour-long interview from late 2020. I love the part where he says "Let me tell you a funny story about David Lynch" which is really a story about himself and not that funny, but utterly him. Loves Bowie and Bruno Ganz. He says his trembling is from anti-depressants, but I wonder if it's alcoholism/withdrawal related?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXWcl6OuVw8

Breaking the Waves, Dancer In the Dark, and Dogville seemed increasingly extreme as heroine martyr films, but then Dogville ultimately was a revenge film

The last film of his I enjoyed was The Boss of It All. Antichrist and Melancholia had their virtues, but being pleasant viewing experiences wasn't one of them - the sense of artistic struggle and general emotional malaise was too strong. I put off seeing Nymphomaniac until the long version became available, but if it did, I haven't watched it; I don't know whether the thought of seeing his last two films makes me indifferent or repulsed.
It's strange because in the 90s he was so fascinating, even when I didn't "agree" with the films (like Breaking the Waves) or he seemed to be playing with a joker persona. A real dark cloud came over his work in the last 15 years or so, and I don't think it's just depression.

Diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease

https://cphpost.dk/?p=137468

He says his trembling is from anti-depressants, but I wonder if it's alcoholism/withdrawal related?

Oh God

Well goddamn...

THE KINGDOM EXODUS along with restored KINGDOM I and II coming soon!