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 German American drama directed by Werner Herzog, starring Willem Dafoe, Michael Shannon, Chloe Sevigny and Udo Kier.
A mentally disturbed man has just murdered his mother and the police have surrounded his house. His fiancee and the director of the play that he was in arrive and tell the back-story of how this happened.
This was pretty good. The characters were acted very well and the non-linear plot worked. I liked the main character and his crazy uncle the most. The camera-work and editing were fantastic. My favorite shot was the basketball in the tree, closely followed by prescription glasses with a light. There was a compositing shot in the park where the main character and fiancee are in real time while the background goes slow motion. I was impressed with how strange this was. Overall, nice work. I rate it good.
