Dogville [2003]

The epithet used most often to depict Danish auteur Lars von Trier is ‘provocateur’. Because of it, or perhaps even despite it, his most defining feature, for me, is that I find each of his movie as unique, as daring and as distinct as his other movies that I've watched. Yes, in Dogville too there’s a woman suffering at the hands of her tormentors/ circumstances as in his Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark or Antichrist. What sets this epic film apart are the stripped-off art décor and set pieces that have given the movie the look, feel, aesthetics and character of a stage play; so does the narrative, which has employed extended, at times rambling, but downright brilliant voiceover of John Hurt, coupled with the deliberately theatrical acting of the terrific cast – Nicole Kidman, Paul Bettany, Stellan Skarsgard et al, to tell the downbeat, philosophical, provocative and Biblical story of societal hypocrisy and double standards. Nicole Kidman, as Grace, an enigmatic woman on the run who seeks refuge in Dogville, a small mining-town in Depression-era America, doesn’t just look ravishingly beautiful, but also fragile and vulnerable, in one of the most nuanced performances of her career. Pictures of that tragic era, shown during the end credits, are extremely evocative.





Director: Lars von Trier
Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Avante-Garde/Experimental Film
Language: English
Country: Denmark

Antichrist [2009]

Antichrist might not be Lars von Trier’s best movie, but it might just be the one he would like to be remembered by. This movie has world cinema’s enfant terrible at his most unapologetically and unflinchingly provocative – a movie that has divided the house right down the middle. Technically the movie belongs in the horror genre; but any work by the Danish provocateur never really sticks to any genre conventions, in the same way that he gives the feather to the fact that moralists love to scorn him, as here, for his disturbing, often shocking, and at times even outrageous display of explicit sexual content, violence, nihilism, and misogyny (the latter, quite inappropriately, always seems to be stuck to his movies). Yet, for all its detractors, the movie is also an audacious, angry, disturbing wildly inventive, and even deeply poetic exposition and unraveling of the darkest corners of the human psyche. In fact, the movie’s prologue, shot in slow-mo black-and-whites, was to me filmmaking at its most ravishingly beautiful and devastating. Charlotte Gainsbourg, as a woman inconsolably grieving her infant son’s death, and William Defoe, as a psychotherapist and her not-so-grieving husband who takes his wife on as his patient, are fearless and brilliant. As a reviewer rightly put it, Antichrist is a movie that is to be experienced rather than explained. And that, had Alfred Hitchcock been alive, he would have loved to make this movie himself.





Director: Lars von Trier
Genre: Horror/Psychological Drama/Religious Drama
Language: English
Country: Denmark

Kærestesorger (Aching Hearts) [2009]

A few critics have accused Danish filmmaker Nils Malmros' Aching Hearts to be a mere recreation of his most famous work Trees of Knowledge. I haven’t watched the former movie, and hence (or perhaps, in spite of that), I found Aching Hearts, which I watched at the ongoing Kolkata Film Festival, to have the credibility to stand on its own. The movie, about a group of adolescent, high school students in 60’s Denmark, has been presented through the eyes of a teenager named Jonas. A nostalgic coming-of-age tale (the movie might very well be semi-autobiographical) has been presented through his complicated relationship with a young, confused girl and fellow student name Agnete, and through his friendship with a couple of guys who too have their lives complicated for reasons of their own. The lilting score added to the various emotions at play here, ranging from teenage angst, confusion and jealousy to finally coming to terms with one’s life. Though the movie dragged a bit towards the end, the director was quick to get things back under control for a well-crafted climax. The movie’s most redeeming feature is that Malmros never seeks to sort out his characters’ complications, thus managing to present a fairly evocative picture of high school life.





Director: Nils Malmros
Genre: Drama/Coming-of-Age/Romance/Teenage Drama
Language: Danish
Country: Denmark

Dancer in the Dark [2000]

The finale of what enfant terrible and self-professed genius Lars von Trier calls his “Golden Hearts Trilogy”, Dancer in the Dark is that rare movie that manages to enthrall and repel in equal measures. A revisionist musical like perhaps no other, the movie received both flak and adulation from its deeply polarized viewers when it was released. I can understand what prompted the former group to passionately throw brickbats at it, but there’s no denying the movie’s raw, heartbreaking emotional power. It is about a frail, working-class Czech émigré Selma (brought to life thanks to an astonishing performance by Bjork) who is saving money to help prevent her son from having her fate – that of slowly going blind – until a debilitating tragedy shatters all her plans and dreams. In a brilliant cinematic maneuver by Trier, Selma, in order to escape her glum existence, often resorts to musical dream sequences; the dull, near-claustrophobic “real” events have been marvelously juxtaposed with vibrant, saturated colours in the “dream” ones. The long-drawn climax might seem brutal and even sadistic to many; however, terrific performances by the wonderfully chosen cast (especially Catherine Deneuve), the surprisingly gripping narrative, and the undeniably innovative filmmaking technique employed by Triar (of combining a musical with a drama), made watching this grim, disturbing movie an absolutely memorable, and in a way, liberating viewing experience for me.





Director: Lars von Trier
Genre: Drama/Musical/Avante-Garde
Language: English
Country: Denmark

Breaking the Waves [1996]

Breaking the Waves wasn’t just one of Danish master (and I daresay, enfant terrible) Lars von Trier’s greatest efforts, it was also one of the pioneering works of the avante-garde school of filmmaking called Dogme 95. It is a sweeping, emotionally charged human drama that is at once devastatingly bleak and deeply affecting for the viewers. Set in a quaint albeit xenophobic Scottish village, this singularly disquieting tale is about a naïve, emotionally unstable and god-fearing girl called Bess (Emily Watson, in one of the most striking screen debuts), who falls in love and marries an oil-rig worker called Jan (the exceptional Stellan Skarsgard); however, a terrible tragedy strikes resulting in Bess walking down the self-destructive path to delusion, paranoia and madness. Divided into chapters with each beginning with brilliantly chosen soundtracks, and filmed on grainy hand-held camera, writer/director von Trier has tackled the two most potent human emotions of love and faith with such incredibly deft touches that it was at times difficult to fathom whether the intent was to provoke or to overwhelm. But think what one may, the end result is at once a profoundly disturbing and a supremely enlightening work of art. To cut a long story short, Breaking the Waves – one of the landmark movies of the 90’s – achieved the truly rare feat of being universal and personal at the same time.

Director: Lars von Trier

Genre: Drama/Psychological Drama/Religious Drama/Romance/Avante-Garde

Language: English

Country: Denmark