von trier – PopCult Reviews

TV Review – Kingdom: Exodus

Kingdom: Exodus (Mubi)
Written by Lars von Trier and Niels Vørsel
Directed by Lars von Trier

I just can’t hate Lars von Trier. I think he’s a massive asshole, and he often has a horrible sense of humor. However, I find his work enjoyable…mostly. He’s frequently on the cusp of a breakthrough but then misses the point. While David Lynch’s Twin Peaks inspired the Kingdom series, I do not think this comes close to that masterpiece. Part of this is Lynch’s willingness to grow and change as an artist. Von Trier, instead, has entered his grumpy old man phase, and Exodus puts much of that on display. It’s eye-rolling & annoying. He has such a cynical viewpoint in the way he ends this story. Lynch wrapped up Twin Peaks: The Return with a dark ending, but it’s clear he doesn’t see things as hopeless.

TV Review – The Kingdom Season One

The Kingdom (Mubi)
Written by Lars von Trier, Niels Vørsel, and Tómas Gislason
Directed by Lars von Trier & Morten Arnfred

Twin Peaks is my favorite television show, and it was a worldwide phenomenon that we rarely see these days. As choices in media have expanded exponentially with streaming, in 1990, broadcast television was still the dominant home entertainment option. Twin Peaks was unlike anything American TV networks had ever shown, and this uniqueness allowed it to flourish outside the States in places like Japan, Denmark, and more. Filmmaker Lars von Trier was so inspired he developed his own TV series about a Copenhagen hospital filled with similarly eccentric characters with a supernatural bundle of secrets roiling beneath the building’s foundations.

Film 2009 #141 – Antichrist

Antichrist (2009)
Directed by Lars von Trier
Starring Charlotte Gainsbourg, Willem Dafoe

Director von Trier wants you to not simply be unsettled, but he wants you to be in a place where you are completely uncomfortable. Once he has you in that place he can begin to burrow under your skin and really get to work. The opening sequence of his latest opus, Antichrist is designed to do just that. The soundtrack is blaring, the images are stark and…um, yes that is actual penetration you’re seeing. And that heavily jarring scene is key to understanding what von Trier is trying to do in this film.

The plot concerns an unnamed couple (Gainsbourg and Dafoe) who are in the midst of orgasm when their toddler son falls out the window of their apartment to his death. Off screen, the wife spends time in a mental hospital and her husband wants to help her work through her grief. His motives are a bit suspect; does he truly want to help her or does he simply not want to be reminded of his own guilt? His desperate need to heal her leads them to their secluded cabin in the woods, nicknamed Eden.

Von Trier is playing his traditional game of taking a genre and twisting it around into something that suits his own aesthetics. The horror in the film is slow burning and abstract and, when the gore does occur, it is much harsher than American audiences are used to. I was reminded of Michael Haenke’s Funny Games (especially the American remake)in how it was intentional designed to play out slowly and then completely exceed the expectations of violence in the audience. Von Trier is setting out not only to antagonize an audience wanting to be spoon fed horror tropes but also to offend the film “elite” he see saws back and forth with as “darling” and “dismissed”.

The core of the film is less supernatural and more metaphorical. It’s intentional that the couple are never named and end up in a Grimm-like forest complete with talking animals. While superficially it is about one husband’s total lack of respect for his wife as an adult individual. On a larger stage it saying a lot about sexuality, guilt we associate with our children, and humanity’s relation to the world around it. Definitely not a film for the faint of heart but containing much more beyond the fervor surrounding it.