Lars von Trier needs to be cloned many, many times over. His clones must then be sent out into the world to do their extraordinary work and thus save the world from itself.
He makes the most satisfying, important and complete films I have ever seen. Dogville and Manderlay have to be two of my very favourites. He's rather like the J.M. Coetzee of movies. Brutal and unrelenting and brilliantly terrific.
If you want to see a Lars von Trier movie with a much quieter, more philosophical tone, check out “The Five Obstructions” — which is a kind of documentary about a set of challenges which von Trier sets to another Danish film-maker, one of his mentors.. It takes a bit of time to get into, but the end is very satisfying, and gives a good insight into his motivations — I liked it so much; more than some of his other movies in fact
Andrew v.w. / 8:53am / 15 December 2007
I loved Element of Crime, Epidemic and especially The Kingdom (which I first saw in movie format – though it was a TV series in Denmark) but I haven’t watched any since Breaking the Waves. Beautifully made, but so deeply abusive that I just switched off.
Maybe I should check out his recent stuff.
ben / 4:44pm / 15 December 2007
I haven’t seen any of his earlier movies. The first I saw was Dancer in the Dark. So far I haven’t seen anything he’s done that wasn’t awesome.
I wonder if he’s getting more direct in his old age. He’s obviously angry/sad about a lot of stuff. To me, Dogville and Manderlay felt blatant in the best kind of way. In the way that parables make their point directly without making you feel like the storyteller thinks you’re an idiot.
Ryan / 7:30am / 18 December 2007