A Danish crime film noir directed by Lars von Trier, starring Michael Elphick.
A detective is hypnotized and tells a story to the therapist. He was trying to solve a series of murders by following his mentor's advice and following the path of the killer.
All red video is difficult to rate with a different colored review. The plot and characters would have been more interesting if the visual aspect had not hurt my eyes so badly. The camera-work would have looked good in any other color scheme. Wikipedia says that it was shot in sodium lights. This won lots of awards, but I don't see why (pun). I rate it the most frequent color on screen: a red, bad rating. There are much better (not horrible) Lars von Trier films to watch instead of this.
A Danish German Netherlands Italian American British French Swedish Finnish Icelandic Argentinian Norwegian Taiwanese Belgian Musical drama directed by Lars von Trier, starring Bjork, Catherine Deneuve, David Morse and Peter Stormare.
A Czech woman has moved to America so that her son can have an operation on his eyes. She is going blind and her son soon will if his eyes are not fixed. A neighbor finds her savings for the operation and steals it. She tries to take it back, but he is accidentally shot in the struggle. She kills him and takes the money as he begs her to do so and the case goes to court.
The whole Golden Heart Trilogy is not equal. This seemed restrained, repressed, whitewashed and censored compared to the other 2 films, lots like Alejandro Jodorowsky's The Rainbow Thief (1990). Most of this was in Dogma 95 style, but the musical numbers had non-diegetic music and tripods for the camera. Bjork is extremely attractive, but her vocal delivery and phrasing seem repetitive, like she wrote 1 song in 1993 and has been repeating it ever since with different lyrics. I like to think that the ending was caused by this, but I won't spoil that too much. Bjork says that Lars shared my view of her appearance and attempted to act on it in a #metoo manner. I didn't like the plot of this as much as the other Golden Heart films and the characters were not as good either. I'm rating it o.k. and in this case, that counts as an insult. You may want to skip this if you're watching Lars von Trier films. His other stuff has all been so much better.
A Danish French Italian Netherlands Spanish Swedish comedy drama directed by Lars von Trier, starring Nikolaj Lie Kaas, Dogme #2 and second film in Lars von Trier's Golden Heart Trilogy.
A group of people pretend to be mentally disabled until one of them freaks out for real and another is taken away by a family member.
Amazing! I was laughing through the whole first hour. I know it's currently not politically correct to make fun of retards. In this film, everyone there would have been in on the plan though, so it became more of a situation making fun of people making fun of retards, which makes it o.k., right? There was nudity, sex and foul language. Being Dogme #2, it was saturated in Dogma 95 style. Seeing as this style is documented better elsewhere, I don't feel the need to explain it. The plot began hilariously. I realized the joke at 0:5:00, began laughing at around 0:7:30 and didn't stop until 1:15:47. The characters fit very well because the "leader" was kind of an egomaniac with an assorted group around him. If we can call Karen the main character, she fit her role very well too. I can't wait to watch Dancer in the Dark (2000) and may recommend these films as a series to those who don't mind reading subtitles to see better movies. I rate this best. Watch it!
A British Danish French German crime drama directed by Thomas Vinterberg, written by Lars von Trier, starring Bill Pullman.
A group of young people take an interest in guns and marksmanship which gives them confidence that they were lacking. A new member is added, who has had a long and unspoken rivalry with the main character. The new member had been in trouble with the law involving guns and his grandmother was a maid for the main character's parents. Because the old woman is afraid of gangs and hesitates to visit a neighbor, the group escort her on the proposed 2 minute walk.
I haven't mentioned style in a long time, but this has it. when good writing, acting, shooting and editing come together, good style is the results in a product which equals more than the sum of its parts. The plot held my attention and I would say the main characters were dynamic. Pacing felt right (why not bring back another term?). Lots of the camera-work was Dogme 95 style, with lots of handheld long takes. The costumes of the main characters are a point to mention. If these were worn in a Harry Potter style film, they would have been a hokey joke. In a film by such accomplished and independent filmmakers as von Trier and Vinterberg, the outlandish costumes fit and make sense without seeming contrived. Audio was not so great, but I could hear most of it. Diegetic dialogue was obviously going to be low. The narrator's voice was about twice as loud as that and the music was twice as loud as the narration. It's easy to see how layered audio levels like this can get out of hand. I really liked this movie and rate it good. You should probably watch it.
A Danish British drama directed by Lars von Trier, starring Emily Watson, Stellan Skarsgard and Udo Kier.
A religious woman in a small town marries a man who works on a nearby oil rig. he is injured at work and returns, but she thinks that her prayer caused his injury because she was praying for his return. He tells her to have sex with someone else and tell him about it, so she begins to fornicate her way through town.
Pretty strange, but that's why I like it. Besides the chapter headings, everything was shot with handheld panavision super35mm cameras. The film was then transferred to digital video and back to film again. This created a surreal effect of heavy outlines and some serious grain or grit. The chapter headings used a tripod. The plot was sparse, but held my interest as the characters developed. Bess and Jan (wife and husband) were dynamic characters, as Bess went crazy and Jan was injured, causing him to go a little crazy too. The only thing that I will mention about audio is that the chapter headings included 1970s mainstream rock music. I used to not like that genre, but have been getting into progressive rock from that time period recently. The pacing was slow to match the sparse plot, but that ended up working out alright. I'm rating this adequate because it's definitely too unique to be just o.k. You may want to watch it. Also, look up Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg's "Dogma/Dogme 95" movement for more information about production style.
A British Danish Belgian French German adventure directed by Lars von Trier, starring Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgard, Christian Slater, Uma Thurman, Willlem Dafoe and Udo Kier.
A man finds a woman injured and lying in an alley. He takes her to his apartment where she tells him about her life.
Beyond amazing. Camera-work and editing blew me away. The plot and characters held my attention the whole 5 and a half hours to the point that I wanted to watch it again as soon as it was done. Speaking of time, make sure to watch the longer version/director's cut. It's worthwhile. This film is not for the squeamish. If graphic depictions of sex and violence make you squeam, don't watch it. Also blasphemy, racism and foul language. More genitals crossed the screen than I'm used to, but that's o.k. for a movie this good. I can't think of anything that would improve this besides better audio editing, but that could be improved in most films. I rate this best. it's a keeper. Watch it!
A drama by Lars Von Trier, starring Nicole Kidman.A fugitive comes to a very small town and must prove her worth to the inhabitants so they will let her stay.There was no set. Everything was on one flat stage with minimal props. There were no walls on the buildings, only lines on the floor. Everything was slow, from dialogue to the movement of characters. I got 45 minutes in and looked at the timer... How much more of this can I take?... NOT 3 HOURS!!!! Hence, I turned it off and you know what that means. Shit review.
