Lars Von Trier: A Curzon Collection

Description

Collection of works from the controversial and experimental Danish director Lars Von Trier. ‘Element of Crime’ (1984) is von Trier’s highly stylised debut feature. Returning from exile in Egypt, police detective Leopold Fisher (Michael Elphick) is asked to investigate a series of murders in which the victims have all been young female ticket sellers. Fisher’s approach is to try to adopt the perspective of the killer and thus to predict where and when the next murder will take place, but when he meets the beautiful Kim (Me Me Lei), the line separating investigation and crime begins to blur. In ‘Epidemic’ (1987), von Trier plays a director collaborating with a writer on a film script about an epidemic spreading throughout the world. As they become intensely focused on their work, they fail to realise that a real epidemic is taking place around them. An adaptation of the Greek tragedy, ‘Medea’ (1988) stars Kirsten Olesen in the titular role as the pained wife of warrior Jason (Udo Kier), who has agreed to marry Glauce (Ludmilla Glinska), the daughter of King Creon of Corinth (Henning Jensen). Creon grants Medea one day to tend to her affairs before she and her two sons are banished. After Medea arranges to seek sanctuary in Athens with her children, she first must have her ruthless vengeance on all those who have wronged her. ‘Europa’ (1991) is set in the aftermath of the Second World War. Leo (Jean-Marc Barr), a young German-American, travels to Germany to help rebuild the country. Working as a train conductor, he witnesses the cruel treatment of German civilians by Allied soldiers and the horrendous destruction brought about by the war as his train stops at towns that no longer exist. Eventually he becomes involved with the railroad boss’s daughter, herself an ex-Nazi partisan. Set in rural Scotland, ‘Breaking the Waves’ (1996) follows a devout young religious woman, Bess (Emily Watson), as she meets and falls in love with oil rig worker Jan (Stellan Skarsgård). Despite opposition from her community they marry, and when Jan returns to the rigs, Bess counts the days until his return. However, when Jan is later paralysed in an accident and is unable to engage in intimacy with his wife, he urges her to take a lover and relate their sexual acts to him, which Bess believes will help him to recover. Set in present-day Denmark, ‘The Idiots’ (1998) follows timid Karen (Bodil Jorgensen) who has a chance encounter with a group of eccentrics engaged in a strange, informal experiment where they pretend to be mentally disabled. Initially shocked, Karen finds herself compelled to stay and eventually joins them in the experiment. However, as the group’s acts of ‘idiocy’ grow more extreme, and the reality of the outside world becomes more intrusive, the border between liberation and self-destruction begins to blur. ‘Dogville’ (2003) stars Nicole Kidman as Grace, a beautiful fugitive with a dangerous secret. Arriving in the small town of Dogville in the Rocky Mountains in the 1930s, she offers her services to the people of the town in return for a safe place to hide. The townsfolk reluctantly agree to shelter Grace for two weeks. But as it becomes increasingly dangerous to harbour her, they come to expect favours from Grace, and the more she gives, the greater her obligations become. In ‘Manderlay’ (2005), fugitive Grace (Bryce Dallas Howard) arrives on the cotton plantation Manderlay to find that her father (Willem Dafoe) and their mob of gangsters have allowed slavery to continue. Freeing the slaves, Grace tries to teach them the rudiments of democracy and self-reliance, but soon comes to realise that she is merely imposing her own values on a culture about which she has little or no understanding. In ‘The Boss of It All’ (2006), Jens Albinus stars as the boss of an IT company who, on the firm’s startup, invents a fake CEO to divert issues to when potential employee problems threaten to arise. Everything rolls along nicely until the time when he decides that he wants to sell the business. With negotiations about to begin, the prospective new owners insist on dealing with the CEO face-to-face, forcing the boss to come up with a deceptive plot to maintain his anonymity. ‘Antichrist’ (2009) stars Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg as a couple grieving the death of their young son. The mother is initially admitted to hospital following the incident, but her husband – a therapist – insists on taking her to their remote forest cabin, ‘Eden’, and looking after her himself. Presented in four chapters with a prologue and epilogue, the film charts the often violent and disturbing course of the couple’s anguish as they immerse themselves in nature and act out their deep suffering in a sequence of increasingly bizarre and brutal rituals. ‘Melancholia’ (2011) portrays the effects of depression on two sisters, Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and Claire (Gainsbourg). Played out in two acts, the film opens with the wedding of Justine and Michael (Alexander Skarsgård): a sumptuous affair paid for by Justine’s sister Claire (Gainsbourg) and her husband John (Kiefer Sutherland). However, when Justine notices a strange star in the sky, she starts behaving oddly and the wedding is ruined. The film’s second act follows Justine, now extremely weak and ill, after she goes to live with her sister. As Claire and John struggle to deal with Justine’s condition, astronomy buff Claire becomes increasingly concerned about a large blue planet that is threatening to collide with the earth. ‘Nymphomaniac: The Director’s Cut – Volumes I & II’ (2013) is von Trier’s cut of his controversial and sexually-explicit drama starring Gainsbourg and Stellan Skarsgård. When the well-read and knowledgeable bachelor Seligman (Skarsgård) finds a beaten and bruised young woman in an alleyway, he takes her home to his flat to tend to her injuries. The woman introduces herself as Joe (Gainsbourg), a self-diagnosed nymphomaniac, whose carefree and hedonistic lifestyle has led to her situation. Seligman presses Joe to tell her story and she proceeds to recount her experiences, from her childhood up to the present, where sex has been the most important thing in her life. ‘The House That Jack Built’ (2018) follows failed architect-turned obsessive serial killer Jack (Matt Dillon) as he recounts five grisly murders he carried out in Washington during the 1970s and ’80s and attempts to transform his victims into what he perceives as the ultimate work of art. Finally, the documentary ‘The Five Obstructions’ (2003) takes an investigative journey into the phenomenon of ‘documentary’, based on manifestos written by each director.