THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT (Denmark/Sweden/France/Germany - 2018) Written and directed by Lars von Trier. Cast: Matt Dillon, Bruno Ganz, Uma Thurman, Siobhan Fallon Hogan, Sofie Grabol, Riley Keough, Jeremy Davies, Ed Speleers, Emil Thorstrup, Marijana Jankovic, Carina Skenhede, Rocco Day, Cohen Day, Osy Ikhile, Yu Ji-tae, David Bailie. (R, 151 mins) When an ill-advised joke about "understanding" and "sympathizing with" Hitler understandably failed to land, professional provocateur and arthouse troll Lars von Trier was kicked out of the Cannes Film Festival in 2011 with his MELANCHOLIA in competition. His triumphant return to the festival earlier this year with the serial killer thriller THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT led to harumphing outrage and at least 100 walkouts. In other words, Mission Accomplished. IFC Films released von Trier's unrated, uncensored, 155-minute version for a one-night theatrical run in late November prior to the VOD rollout of the R-rated cut, shortened by four minutes. I don't really see why an edited version is necessary if it's mainly going to be seen on VOD anyway, and you can tell where the cuts are--the brutal murders of two children being a key point of repulsion at Cannes, along with one graphic scene of a woman's breasts being mutilated and sliced off. But even if you could see these few bits at full strength in the cut version, THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT isn't exactly the second coming of HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER. It is a tour-de-force for an all-in Matt Dillon as Jack, an odd, antisocial, obsessive-compulsive architect-turned-serial killer based in the rural outskirts of the Pacific Northwest, recounting five random murders over a 12-year period to an initially unseen man named Verge (Bruno Ganz). Verge scoffs at Jack's boasts and claims, sardonically taunting him with "Don't believe you're going to tell me something I haven't heard before." But by the end, Verge's snide dismissals and mocking tone will give way to legitimate horror and disgust, to the point where he finally deems Jack an "Antichrist."
Jack's murderous ways seem to have started as a spur-of-the-moment impulse decision. In "Incident 1," he happens upon a woman (Uma Thurman) stranded on the side of the road with a flat tire and a broken jack (sly foreshadowing?). She's pushy and abrasive, demanding more and more of Jack's time and telling him he "looks like a serial killer." That is, until she walks it back and says he looks like too much of a wimp to be a murderer, to which Jack's knee-jerk response is to bash her head in with the jack. Independently wealthy from an inheritance, Jack owns an empty warehouse space with a massive walk-in freezer, which he puts to use by storing her corpse. Jack's first attempt at premeditated murder comes in "Incident 2," where he awkwardly and unconvincingly tries to talk his way into home of a cop's widow (Siobhan Fallon Hogan), first by pretending to be a detective ("I'd like to see a police badge," she says. "So would I," replies Jack), and then only gaining entrance by playing on her greed by saying he's there to talk about a possible increase in her late husband's pension. After killing her, he's nearly caught by a passing cop (Ed Speleers) when his OCD and his obsessive cleanliness repeatedly force him to go back into the house and double/triple/quadruple-check to make sure he didn't miss a spot of blood, repeatedly scrubbing the floors and walls over and over again ("A murderer with OCD and to top it off, a cleaning compulsion?" needles Verge). In "Incident 3," Jack is a gun nut in a red hat taking a single mom (Sofie Grabol) and her two young sons, George (Cohen Day) and Grumpy (Rocco Day), to a vacant shooting range with predictably horrific results, including a macabre picnic where he forces her to feed bites of apple pie to her two dead boys ("This has been a good day," Jack beams with pride after this "family" outing). By this point, Jack has grown more confident in his abilities as a chameleon-like killer and begins sending murder photos to the press, calling himself "Mr. Sophistication," likely a reference to the grimly sardonic emcee at Ben Gazzara's seedy burlesque club in the 1976 John Cassavetes cult classic THE KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE). In "Incident 4," Jack is in full-on "bad boy" mode, manipulating and psychologically abusing Jacqueline (Riley Keough) by giving her the nickname "Simple" and boasting that he's killed 60 people and "in a couple of minutes, it'll be 61." "Incident 5" has Jack abducting five random people and taking them to his freezer--now filled with years' worth of collected victims--and lining them up for a full metal jacket to rip through all of their heads with one shot, only to be stalled by the fact that the guy at the gun shop (Jeremy Davies, twitchy as ever) sold him mislabeled ammo.
Amidst the horrors on display, there's quite a bit of dark, absurdist humor throughout, like Jack leaving one victim's severed breast under the windshield wiper of the cop who earlier issued him a parking ticket, and then using the other breast to make a wallet. And almost everything out of Verge's mouth is gold, with Ganz deploying a tone so incredulously mocking of Jack that you can't help but laugh (their conversations are reminiscent of Charlotte Gainsbourg and Stellan Skarsgard's framing sequences in NYMPHOMANIAC). But the film really loses its way after the fifth incident, and when we finally see Verge onscreen near the end, the magic of Ganz's vocal performance is lost thanks to von Trier's decision to turn him into a Chuck Palahniuk plot construct. Of course, the film was never meant to exist in reality, as Jack is the most unreliable of narrators (it's even possible that "Incident 1" isn't even his first murder, since he seems so testy and preoccupied from the start), and he gets away with his acts much too easily, but at some point, THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT stops being shocking and provocative and just becomes repetitive and exhausting, with a bloated running time that borders on loitering.
A walking embodiment of the DSM-5, Jack believes that his murders constitute "art," a sentiment stemming from his disputing the differences between "architect" and "engineer" when describing his profession. This leads to endless debates with Verge about art, iconography, and the nature of "masterpieces" that play over shots of revered paintings, museum pieces, newsreel footage of Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Idi Amin, various massacres and genocides, and, eventually, in a grating bit of masturbatory self-adulation, a highlight reel of clips from past von Trier films. There's some political and social commentary to be mined from this (there's no slogan on Jack's red hat in "Incident 3," but the implication is obvious), and Jack very often comes off like a pathetic incel with some major issues with women (note how it's being called a "wimp" that initially sets him off). Dillon dives into this role with fearless abandon, and von Trier crafts some undoubtedly effective and haunting images, whether it's the positioning of the victims in "Incident 3," the taxidermy method in which he preserves Grumpy's body, or something like Jack's thumb and the tip of his index finger cleaning off a single blood-drenched blade of grass, and finally, the ultimate construction of his "house." But less could've been more with THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT, and von Trier is, as usual, so self-indulgently preoccupied with poking people with sticks to get a reaction that he disappears up his own ass. Few filmmakers are more divisive than Lars von Trier, and there's moments of greatness even in his lesser films. But his need to shock and provoke for a reaction too often feels like the work of an enfant terrible making a name for himself rather than a 62-year-old who's in his fourth decade of filmmaking.
THE SALVATION (Denmark/UK/South Africa - 2014; US release 2015)
Produced by Lars von Trier's Zentropa Entertainments, THE SALVATION is a dark, brutal western that will please fans of films like THE PROPOSITION and the more recent THE HOMESMAN. Shot in some desolate regions of South Africa that stand in for an almost otherworldly, apocalyptic version of the 1870s Old West, the film centers on Jon Jensen (Mads Mikkelsen), a Danish immigrant and war veteran who settled in America seven years earlier with his brother Peter (Mikael Persbrandt). Jon has finally achieved enough success and financial security that he can afford to bring over his wife Marie (Nanna Oland Fabricius) and Kresten (Toke Lars Bjarke), his son who was just an infant when he left for America. When fate has them sharing a coach ride to town with two drunken louts, the Jensen family's American dream quickly goes south: the drunks attempt to rape Marie and hold a knife to Kresten's throat before throwing Jon from the coach. By the time Jon catches up to them, he finds the dead bodies of his wife and son in the road and the two men still in the coach, sleeping it off. Jon kills both men and he and Peter bury Marie and Kresten. It turns out one of the drunks was the younger brother of Henry Delarue (Jeffrey Dean Morgan), the ruthless, cold-blooded enforcer for an oil baron looking to buy up the town and run everyone out. Delarue gives the mayor (Jonathan Pryce) and the sheriff (Douglas Henshall) two hours to find his brother's killer or they have to pick two of their own residents to sacrifice. It says a lot about this town that they don't even bother investigating and instead spend the two hours deciding which two people they'll give Delarue before settling on an old woman and a paraplegic. It doesn't take long for everyone to realize Jon is the killer, and even though they know and like Jon and know the men killed his family, they're only too eager to turn him and Peter over to Delarue, who makes the mistake of underestimating the resourcefulness and the resolve of the Jensen brothers.
Directed and co-written by von Trier's Dogme 95 colleague Kristian Levring, THE SALVATION is an absolutely riveting western that could've been a hit if it had gotten a wide release. One of the most commercially accessible films to come out of the von Trier camp--and a complete break from Dogme 95 for Levring--THE SALVATION presents one of the most dour and hellish looks at the west this side of HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER, and the town is populated by what may very well be the western genre's most shameless cowards--the mayor (who's also the undertaker) and the sheriff (who's also the minister) not only sacrifice a frail, elderly woman and a disabled man ("I don't bother anybody! I don't want to die!" the legless man cries) rather than do their jobs, but when Jon sells his land back to the mayor for a measly $150, the mayor tells him to keep the money in his boots strictly so he'll know where to recover his $150 when Delarue strings Jon up and lets him bake in the sun later on. And in an infuriating display of tone-deafness, the old woman's grandson (Alexander Arnold) actually calls Peter a coward for not stepping up to stop Delarue's reign of terror. Mikkelsen and Morgan make outstanding adversaries, and even playing mute doesn't make Eva Green tone down her usual crazy-eyes routine that Eva Greeniacs have come to know and love in her performance as "The Princess," the silent widow of Delarue's younger brother. She had her tongue cut out by "savages" as a little girl and has a strange relationship with Delarue where she's both co-conspirator and captive. As is the case with so many movies these days, it's some dodgy CGI late in the game (some really unconvincing fire) that takes you out of the film, but subtracting that, THE SALVATION is a must-see for western fans, a film that very effectively invokes nihilistic memories of classic spaghetti westerns--right down to its Kaspar Winding score that emulates the more somber, reflective side of Ennio Morricone--without becoming winking or self-conscious in any way. This one's a small masterpiece that's going to find a strong cult following very quickly. (R, 92 mins)
INTO THE GRIZZLY MAZE (US - 2015)
An initially OK throwback to the kind of nature-run-amok horror movie that followed in the wake of JAWS in the late '70s and early '80s, INTO THE GRIZZLY MAZE, a loose remake of 1976's GRIZZLY, devolves into a laughable mess of crummy CGI and bad editing. The cutaways to the titular beast often look like haphazardly-inserted stock footage of Bart the Bear, and it's a rare occurrence where you get the feeling that the rampaging grizzly is actually in the same vicinity as the cast. By the very end, director David Hackl (SAW V) is resorting to a totally CGI'd bear and some CGI fire that would have the digital effects team at the Asylum looking away in embarrassment. This doesn't help make the case for the long-delayed INTO THE GRIZZLY MAZE, which was completed in 2012, is on its second distributor (Open Road acquired it and sat on it for a year and a half before selling it to Indomitable Entertainment), and its third retitling after being known as RED MACHINE, ENDANGERED, and GRIZZLY. A movie about a bear chasing people through a forest shouldn't have this much behind-the-scenes strife. Fittingly, the film went straight to VOD, since its climax would probably get it laughed off the screen in wide release. There's ample evidence to suggest that INTO THE GRIZZLY MAZE knows that it's garbage--no one's going to argue that a mauled-and-presumed dead Billy Bob Thornton reappearing with the left side of his face hanging off as he takes aim at the grizzly isn't entertaining as hell, or another character sinking into a rotting, maggot-infested deer carcass like it's quicksand doesn't deliver the gory goods, but INTO THE GRIZZLY MAZE keeps stumbling every time it gets some goofy momentum going.
The script, co-written by BUNRAKU director Guy Moshe, works in entirely too much family squabbling between estranged brothers Rowan (James Marsden who, between this, THE LOFT, and ACCIDENTAL LOVE, has become the Patron Saint of Shelved Cinema) and Beckett (Thomas Jane). Rowan is an ex-con just paroled after a seven-year stretch for manslaughter, and Beckett is the deputy sheriff in their small Alaskan hometown. Rowan is back to look for local guide Johnny (Adam Beach), who's been missing with two hunters in the "Grizzly Maze" for nearly two weeks. There's evidence that a rampaging, rogue bear is on the loose, but nature-minded Beckett, who's tagged and collared numerous bears in the forest in order to protect them from being hunted, doesn't want Sheriff Sully (Scott Glenn) or eccentric local bear expert Douglass (Thornton, functioning as the "Jon Voight-in-ANACONDA" or "Henry Silva-in-ALLIGATOR" asshole) to just go in and kill it. There's some attempt at statement-making with Douglass, a Grizzly Whisperer if you will, incessantly talking about how man has upset the balance of nature and the bear is pissed off and ready to eat anything that gets in its way to restore that balance ("He's a machine. He doesn't give a shit. You all taste the same to him!"). Beckett, Rowan, and local medic Kaley (Michaela McManus) end up joining forces, both to find the bear and to locate Beckett's deaf wife Michelle (Piper Perabo), a nature photographer and conservationist who went exploring the forest to take shots for a new project, because sure, a deaf person in a forest ruled by potentially pissed-off bears who have had it with poachers and loggers is a great idea (SPOILER ALERT: the bear sneaks up behind her multiple times). Until Hackl gets way too comfortable resorting to unconvincing CGI, INTO THE GRIZZLY MAZE is an intermittently fun B-movie throwback. There's a good amount of stuff to like about it: Thornton knows what kind of movie he's in and is clearly enjoying himself as the hectoring, antagonizing Douglass, who ventures into the maze on his own solo mission to exterminate the bear and keeps taunting Rowan and Beckett when they periodically cross paths, and the location shooting in Utah and in Vancouver is often breathtakingly beautiful. But there's just too much needless backstory on everyone, from Rowan and Beckett's tortured dad and cancer-stricken mom to their dad and Douglass having some falling out years earlier, to the real reasons behind Rowan's incarceration, and Sully allowing poachers into the forest because he's about to retire and needs a cushier nest egg. It's a movie about a killer grizzly...no one gives a shit about Sully's pension. The ending flies off the rails in a way that will amuse followers of bad movies, but it didn't need to be that way. Clumsy editing, subpar special effects, reshoots, and a plethora of post-production and "additional editing" credits show the tell-tale signs of a project in which no one was really sure what they wanted. You'd think it would be hard to screw up a B-horror movie about a killer bear, but INTO THE GRIZZLY MAZE too often manages to do it. (R, 90 mins) CHILD 44 (US - 2015)
Up until a week or so before its release, CHILD 44 was scheduled to bow on 2500 screens. At the eleventh hour, Summit abruptly came to its senses and downgraded it to a limited release, instead rolling it out on just 510 screens in a valiant attempt to contain the fallout. Landing in 17th place and grossing a paltry $600,000 in its opening weekend, the $50 million CHILD 44 was one of the biggest box office bombs of the year (a legit bomb--not one of those "It only grossed $80 million its opening weekend, so it's a flop" bombs that you read about every Sunday evening on Variety's web site), though it would've been even more catastrophic on five times as many screens. Produced by Ridley Scott and based on Tim Rob Smith's 2008 bestseller, CHILD 44 has a top-notch screenwriter (Richard Price, who scripted THE COLOR OF MONEY, SEA OF LOVE, and CLOCKERS among others), a solid director (Swedish filmmaker Daniel Espinosa, best known for SAFE HOUSE), and a terrific cast, but it's just lugubrious misfire from the start. The pace is mind-numbingly slow, the film absurdly overlong at 137 minutes (and it still feels like whole sections of story are missing), the cast of British and Swedish actors pays loving homage to Yakov Smirnoff with their cartoonish Boris & Natasha accents, and it takes a ridiculous 75 minutes for the main plot to even kick into gear. In the Soviet Union in the late 1950s, MGB (later known as the KGB) officials are busy burying evidence of a string of murders where the victims, all young boys, are found naked. Calling murder "a capitalist disease," the officials instead chalk all of the killings up to "train accidents," which doesn't rest well with MGB officer Leo Demidov (Tom Hardy). He's already butting heads with colleague Vasili (Joel Kinnamon), who starts a rumor that Demidov's wife Raisa (Noomi Rapace) is a traitor. This gets the Demidovs demoted to Volsk where, months later, a similar murder catches Leo's attention and gets him in hot water with his superior General Nesterov (Gary Oldman), a company man happy to look the other way when it's obvious there's a serial killer at work. Price and Espinosa throw in a number of subplots that feel like superfluous padding, and while the period detail is excellent, there's little context in terms of where the story fits into Soviet history other than having barking officers barging through a door to find starving people in tattered clothing, huddled together as they cry and scream, which seems to happen every few minutes. There's such a lack of focus that the story becomes increasingly difficult to follow, there's a few fight scenes that are completely incoherent, and the cast of proven but defeated actors are terrible across the board. Did Espinosa spend all of his energies focusing on the production design at the expense of everything else? Aside from the gray, dreary look of the film, absolutely nothing in the miserable CHILD 44 works. One of the most oppressive film experiences of 2015. (R, running time: endless)
NYMPHOMANIAC (Denmark/Germany/France/Belgium - 2013; US release 2014) Written and directed by Lars von Trier.
VOL I: Cast: Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgard, Stacy Martin, Shia LaBeouf, Christian Slater, Uma Thurman, Sophie Kennedy Clark, Connie Nielsen, Jens Albinus, Hugo Speer, Cyron Melville, Felicity Gilbert, Anders Hove, Jesper Christensen, Saskia Reeves, Ananya Berg, Nicolas Bro. (Unrated, 117 mins)
VOL II: Cast: Charlotte Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgard, Stacy Martin, Shia LaBeouf, Christian Slater, Jamie Bell, Willem Dafoe, Mia Goth, Jean-Marc Barr, Udo Kier, Michael Pas, Caroline Goodall, Kate Ashfield, Ananya Berg, Shanti Roney, Kookie Ryan, Papou. (Unrated, 124 mins)
Arthouse provocateur Lars von Trier prides himself on walking the fine line between visionary auteur and misanthropic asshole, a firm believer that any publicity is good publicity, whether he's putting his lead actresses through hell to get the performance he needs from them, or prompting John C. Reilly to walk off of 2005's MANDERLAY over filming the actual slaughter of a donkey, or getting kicked out of the Cannes Film Festival for saying he sympathizes with Hitler. Like a bratty kid, von Trier revels in attention but with rare exception, backs it up with great films. When he announced NYMPHOMANIAC would run over five hours and include professional actors in unsimulated, hardcore sex scenes, the buzz was on. While the director's complete five-and-a-half hour cut was released in Europe, the US release was split into two films running around two hours each, released a few weeks apart (the director's cut will likely surface on Blu-ray). Von Trier supervised the US cuts, and while much explicit material was removed, quite a bit remains, including some penetrative shots that involve body doubles and CGI trickery melding the below-the-belt region with the name actors' bodies from the waist up. In other words, Shia LaBeouf may have auditioned for the film by sending von Trier a homemade sex tape, and while he's doing frontal nudity, the erection and beyond are the work of his body double. The same goes for actress Stacy Martin fellating a man (Jens Albinus) on a train. It's a very real-looking prosthetic penis, and while we see semen drooling out of Martin's mouth, the director's cut apparently shows the spurting ejaculation, for those so inclined.
A lot of this is von Trier just being von Trier, but contrary to initial reports and the director's own incessant hype, NYMPHOMANIAC, at least in its US incarnation, isn't quite the wall-to-wall porno fuckfest that it's been made out to be. In many ways, it's a von Trier greatest hits package, with cues from and callbacks to his past films like DOGVILLE (2003), ANTICHRIST (2009) and especially BREAKING THE WAVES (1996). It's von Trier's third straight film with Charlotte Gainsbourg, who's become his muse in misery after the harrowing ANTICHRIST and MELANCHOLIA (2011), where she initially has a supporting role but becomes the focus as the film progresses. Von Trier has a history of pushing his actresses to their limit and getting incredible work from them: Emily Watson's Oscar-nominated performance in BREAKING THE WAVES remains one of the greatest in all of cinema, while Bjork surpassed all expectations in DANCER IN THE DARK (2000). DOGVILLE's Nicole Kidman and MANDERLAY's Bryce Dallas Howard also survived von Trier and lived to tell the tale. In Gainsbourg, von Trier has found a kindred spirit who's willing and eager to go to the dark places others won't. She's the Klaus Kinski to his Werner Herzog, minus the mutual death threats.
As the first half of NYMPHOMANIAC opens, bookish academic Seligman (Stellan Skarsgard) happens upon the unconscious Joe (Gainsbourg) lying in an alley, beaten and bloodied. He helps her back to his apartment, lets her shower and makes her some tea. They begin talking, first about little things, and then she agrees to tell her story. Von Trier plays with the time element a bit, but in the first volume, much of the dramatic weight is carried by 22-year-old newcomer Martin as young Joe. As older Joe explains, "I discovered my cunt as a two-year-old," and before her age is in double digits (Ananya Berg plays Joe at this age in some discreetly-shot sequences that imply more they show), Joe and her best friend B are exploring themselves in ways that are already threatening to go beyond sliding down the bannister and grinding themselves against the bathroom floor. At the age of 15 (and now played by Martin), Joe asks local stud mechanic Jerome (LaBeouf) to take her virginity, which he does in the most perfunctory fashion imaginable. Nevertheless, the beast has been unleashed as Joe and B (Sophie Kennedy Clark) have contests like sneaking on to a train and screwing as many men as possible during the trip. They even form a club at school devoted to the pursuit of sex without love, though B eventually comes to her own realization that "the secret ingredient to sex is love." Joe believes that love complicates things, and continues sleeping with as many men as possible, eventually reconnecting with Jerome when she applies for a secretarial job at a printing company owned by his uncle (Jesper Christensen), even though she has no secretarial skills. She resists Jerome's advances, spending her evenings maintaining a busy schedule of hourly appointments with men who drop in to have sex with her, often passing one another as one arrives and the other leaves. By her own estimate, she's sleeping with up to eight men on a typical evening, and even devises an elaborate system for deciding which men she'll call back among the many messages on her answering machine. At the end of Vol. 1, Joe decides to settle down for domesticity with the now-successful Jerome, when she finds she can no longer reach orgasm.
In a brilliant debut, Martin is the focal point of the first half of NYMPHOMANIAC, and like Watson in BREAKING THE WAVES, she's up to the challenge even though von Trier saves the worst for Joe for when Gainsbourg assumes the role. For the first half, Gainsbourg is limited to sitting in bed as Joe tells Seligman her story, and the kind-hearted intellectual listens intently, often going off on thematic tangents involving fly fishing, cake forks, Bach, Poe, and mathematical theories that sort-of tie into the psychology of what Joe is telling him. Von Trier also gives Christian Slater his best role in years as Joe's doctor father in flashbacks. Joe loves her father deeply, and the two bond over their shared love of trees and flowers, neither feeling a connection to Joe's "cold bitch" mother (Connie Nielsen). As good as Martin and Slater are, the show-stealer for the first half is Uma Thurman in a one-scene stunner as the enraged wife of Mr. H (Hugo Speer), one of Joe's regular hookups. When Mr. H leaves his wife and shocks Joe by showing up at her place with his suitcases in tow, he's followed closely by Mrs H, who's dragged their three young sons along with her. If that wasn't awkward enough, Joe's next guy (Cyron Melville) shows up and everyone watches Mrs. H maniacally melt down, introducing the boys to Joe so they can "put a face to the all the therapy they'll need down the road," and saying "Would it be alright if I show the children the whoring bed? They need to see it! Let's go see Daddy's favorite place!" Thurman is onscreen for less than ten minutes but she makes every second count, and it's an instant classic of laughing while cringing in pained discomfort, one of those rare instances where a cameo is actually Oscar-worthy.
Vol. 2 picks up with Joe and Jerome married and having a baby. A few years pass as Martin exits and Gainsbourg takes over. The child, Marcel, is now three and though they love each other, Joe and Jerome's sex life has stalled. Jerome encourages her to see other men if it will help her psychologically ("If you buy a tiger, you have to keep it fed," he says). This goes on for some time and eventually leads Joe to the mysterious K (Jamie Bell). K seems to be some sort of Craigslist-type sex therapist/sadist who lives in what appears to be an abandoned office building where women show up for appointments to be beaten. K does not offer sex, and he doesn't allow safe words. You do what he says, period. Joe's sessions with K involve him renaming her "Fido," tying her to a couch, bent over, while he whips her bare ass with a riding crop, then inserting his fingers into her vagina to gauge her arousal. Things just get worse for Joe as her sex addiction, self-loathing and degradation cause her to lose her family. She can barely hold down her office job, routinely fucking male co-workers in the restroom or a closet space. She's ordered into therapy, where she lashes out against a society that judges her and tries to shame her. Now in her mid-40s, she eventually loses any feeling of pleasure, as her vagina is so scarred and worn from the thousands of men over three decades of hook-ups that it spontaneously bleeds, and causes numerous bouts of unbearable, debilitating pain. Joe eventually gets a job as a debt collector/extortionist for the shady L (Willem Dafoe), which leads to her shot at redemption by becoming a mentor to troubled teen P (Mia Goth).
While the first half of NYMPHOMANIAC has its share of dark moments, it's also surprisingly amusing in spots, such as Joe comparing her vagina to the automatic doors at a supermarket ("only with a stronger sensor") or when Seligman echoes the audience's call of bullshit with every one of Jerome's improbably hackneyed returns to the narrative. There's also the standard von Trier button-pushing bits like Joe getting wet standing by her father's death bed, and later in Vol 2, unsubtle Christ metaphors and Joe admitting that she feels a sympathetic kinship with a pedophile (Jean-Marc Barr) because of their "outcast" status (drawing thematic parallels to past von Trier outcasts ike the tragic Bess in BREAKING THE WAVES, Selma in DANCER IN THE DARK, and Grace in DOGVILLE and MANDERLAY). But it's the second half where things take a grim turn, largely with the intensely disturbing sequences involving Bell's K (the much-ballyhooed "Silent Duck" moment when K fists Joe is mostly implied, at least in the US cut), and the effect Joe's behavior has on Jerome and Marcel. I'm still not convinced that his recent public implosion isn't some extended von Trier-coordinated publicity stunt, but credit where it's due--funny accent and all, LaBeouf is actually quite good, especially in the second half. Given the extreme length and the myriad of directions the story takes, von Trier generally keeps things on point even when it threatens to derail at any moment. It only starts to feel choppy as things wind down, especially in the debt collection tangent, which comes out of nowhere and doesn't really feel like it belongs. As shown in her scenes at her jobs, Joe really has no skills other than sexual, which wouldn't seem a prerequisite for tough-talking collecting for a loan shark (perhaps the manipulation aspect?). Also, Joe's relationship with P is never fleshed out, at least not to the point where some of P's actions near the end make complete sense. I see the way the tables get turned and Joe is looking at things from another perspective, but it just feels like something's missing or got lost in the editing.
Like Seligman, the viewer is likely to be skeptical of some of Joe's story. There are many times over the course of the four hours when both Joe and to a lesser extent, Seligman seem like the classic "unreliable narrator." In many ways, NYMPHOMANIAC is film loaded with sex and not really specifically about sex. One popular theory is that Joe is a stand-in for von Trier and that Seligman is every stuffy, erudite, out-of-touch film critic who's judged and vilified him, though this involves a revelation by Seligman that I won't spoil. But Seligman doesn't judge Joe (other than being incredulous over some too convenient developments), which makes him different from every other man she's ever known other than her beloved father. There's a lot to take in--no pun intended--with NYMPHOMANIAC, so much so that sometimes the filmmaking itself is easy to overlook. There are some stunning shots and a strong Andrei Tarkovsky vibe throughout--one shot of older Joe finding "her" tree is breathtaking, and clothed or otherwise, the camera simply adores Martin, who has the most hauntingly seductive gaze you've seen in ages. Even seeing it split into two films--if you see it in its American incarnation, it's best to set four hours aside and just binge it--it probably still needs to be seen again in von Trier's original director's cut. Judging from viewing it in this format, it's not von Trier's best film--it seems to start stumbling with the introduction of L, though that's no fault of Dafoe's-- but it may be his most personal one, and one that reveals more of itself on repeat viewings, however soul-crushing and exhausting that may be. But that's vintage Lars von Trier. Love him or hate him, his films get you talking.
There's some serious Terrence Malick/Robert Altman hero worship on the part of writer/director David Lowery with AIN'T THEM BODIES SAINTS, an artfully-shot but dreary and dull '70s-set mood piece. Young lovers Bob Muldoon (Casey Affleck) and Ruth Guthrie (Rooney Mara) are wrapping up a crime spree when they're cornered by police, an accomplice is killed, and Ruth fires a shot that injures young cop Patrick Wheeler (Ben Foster). Ruth is pregnant, and for the sake of her and their baby, Bob surrenders to the police, takes the blame for the shooting, and says he acted alone. Four years later, Ruth has stayed out of trouble and is a single mother looked after by Skerritt (Keith Carradine), the father of their dead friend and a dangerous man with criminal ties. Patrick and Ruth have a tentative friendship that's leaning towards a relationship when he gets word that Bob has busted out of the joint and with the authorities and three killers hired by Skerritt on his tail, is headed straight back to town to pick up Ruth and their daughter and live life on the lam.
On paper, AIN'T THEM BODIES SAINTS sounds like a solid drama. But Lowery is more interested in the aesthetic element, which would be fine if the film wasn't so dark and drably shot. Sure, there's some shots that have an almost still photo quality and Lowery's obviously a disciple of Malick's every stylistic move (I'm talking early, BADLANDS-era Malick when he still bothered with trivialities like narrative construction), but shouldn't there be more than that? Lowery also seems to paying special tribute to Altman's 1974 film THIEVES LIKE US, which had a similar "young couple on the run and she's pregnant" element and starred Carradine and featured Tom Skerritt in a supporting role, very likely the source of Carradine's character name. SAINTS boasts a strong and internalized performance by Foster and an excellent one by Carradine, in what's probably his best role in years and the film's most interesting character (Lowery even lets him sing the closing credits song and his voice hasn't lost a bit of that "I'm Easy" magic), but the film can't overcome its stale plot, sluggish pacing, and a pair of ineffectual performances by Affleck and Mara. Affleck's naturally mumbly delivery has worked in his favor before, particularly in his Oscar-nominated turn in 2007's THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD and the recent OUT OF THE FURNACE, but here he underplays to the point of catatonia. He and Mara both sound like they might doze off in mid-sentence every time they open their mouth. By the time it's over, you may find that the film's high points are the performances of Foster and especially Carradine, who obviously has a huge fan in Lowery. Now that he's got a fake Malick film out of his system, maybe next time Lowery should write a script specifically tailored for Carradine. That sounds like a winner. (R, 96 mins)
THE HUNT (Denmark/Sweden/Belgium - 2012/2013 US release)
Ghost-produced by Lars von Trier, THE HUNT is one of the top feel-bad movies of the year. Directed and co-written by Thomas Vinterberg (THE CELEBRATION), the film stars Mads Mikkelsen as Lucas, a mild-mannered nice guy who's divorced and has a teenage son who's thinking about moving in with him permanently. A teacher by profession, Lucas was laid off after the school closed, but now he's helping out at a pre-school in the small town where he lives. He works, hangs out with his buddies, and leads a generally quiet life, and things are starting to progress romantically with co-worker Nadja (Alexandra Rapaport). All that goes to shit when he's accused of sexually abusing young Klara (a remarkable performance by Annika Wedderkopp in a very difficult role). Klara is the daughter of Lucas' best friend Theo (Thomas Bo Larsen) and trusted family friend Lucas frequently walks her to school. Klara develops a harmless crush on Lucas and in one of those awkward moments where kids imitate adults, kisses him on the lips when he's horsing around in the school playroom with some of the boys. Lucas handles the issue in a way that's sensitive to Klara, but she's embarrassed and makes up a story using verbiage she overheard her older brother and his friend using when they were looking at a porno mag. Lucas' boss Grethe (Susse Wold) handles the matter in the most overzealous manner possible, properly notifying the police but then immediately telling all the parents and even calling Lucas' ex-wife, who lives out of town with their son Marcus (Lasse Fogelstrom). The cops questioning little Klara practically put the words in her mouth and before he even realizes what's happening, Lucas is the town pariah, ostracized by everyone, banned from all business establishments, and Theo and his wife Agnes (Anne Louise Hassing) want nothing more to do with him, even after Klara confesses that nothing happened and she made it up. The damage is done and a mob mentality forms throughout the town, with more parents coming forward with allegations that Lucas molested their children as well.
THE HUNT mellows out as it goes along, but for a while, it's a harrowing experience. The tension mounts as Lucas grows increasingly panicked over the situation and can't get a straight answer out of anyone, and it's hard not getting angry at the "villages storming Castle Frankenstein" reaction of his friends and acquaintances as the situation quickly and plausibly spirals out of control. The resolution probably wouldn't work if this got an American remake, which seems likely. A mainstream take on this would've turned Lucas' plight into a STRAW DOGS-style siege situation leading to a vengeance saga. There is an element of that here, and in the fate of one individual, but Vinterberg doesn't proceed in that direction, instead going for that arthouse ambiguity in an ending that doesn't provide closure, which is probably the whole point. THE HUNT is a top-notch suspense drama with an outstanding performance by Mikkelsen, who took home the Best Actor prize at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival for his brilliant work here. (R, 116 mins)
As a filmmaker, Lars von Trier is the kind of provocateur who constantly walks that fine line between "visionary genius" and "kid in the back of the classroom making fart noises under his arm." A lot of what von Trier does, he does simply for the reaction and the attention. He very nearly derailed MELANCHOLIA's Cannes showing last year with comments that came across as strangely pro-Hitler, so much so that star Kirsten Dunst said something to the effect of "Sometimes Lars doesn't know when to shut up." And he should shut up and let his films speak for themselves, because the mesmerizing MELANCHOLIA is a one-of-a-kind film--a simple description would be that it's von Trier's Tarkovsky film--and probably the director's best since 1996's BREAKING THE WAVES.
The first half of the film presents what's possibly the most awkward wedding reception in film history, as Justine (Dunst, who won the Best Actress award at Cannes) realizes early into the reception that she doesn't really want to be with Michael (Alexander Skarsgard). Von Trier plays things close to the vest, and it doesn't take long, judging from the couple's interactions and family reactions (horrible mom Charlotte Rampling delivers the most uncomfortably bitter wedding toast ever), to see that Justine is severely depressed and mentally ill to a significant degree. The second half of the film takes place some time later (weeks, maybe months) as Justine, who's worse than ever, is staying with her devoted, long-suffering sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), her rich husband John (Kiefer Sutherland), and their young son Leo (Cameron Spurr) at their ludicrously expansive mansion (they have their own 18-hole golf course) as Melancholia, a planet long hidden behind the sun, has gone off course and is set to pass--or possibly collide with--Earth.
Dunst is a revelation here, but as great as she is, Gainsbourg is the driving force and central character throughout MELANCHOLIA. Both deserved Oscar nominations (probably Sutherland as well) and I can only conclude that von Trier's big mouth stopped that from happening. Gainsbourg allowed herself to be put through hell on von Trier's ANTICHRIST (2009) and does it again here, albeit to a lesser degree. Gainsbourg has always been a fine actress, but von Trier brings out the absolute best in her. It's interesting to consider the horror stories that actresses have in regards to working with von Trier, but the stars of his films with women as central characters--Emily Watson in BREAKING THE WAVES, Bjork in DANCER IN THE DARK, Nicole Kidman in DOGVILLE, Gainsbourg and Dunst--have turned in some of the most moving, haunting, unforgettable performances in film in the last couple decades. In short, MELANCHOLIA is a stunning experience, filled with von Trier's usual sense of cynical misanthropia, but there's a focus and a maturity to it that was lacking in some of his past work, especially the experimental and over-the-top DOGVILLE and its disastrous follow-up MANDERLAY. But it's also got more humor than usual (a long limo unable to make it up the sharp turns of John's twisty driveway; Udo Kier as a bitchy, drama queen wedding planner who refuses to look at Justine when she and Michael are late to the reception). Also with Stellan Skarsgard, Brady Corbet, Jesper Christensen, and John Hurt. One of 2011's best. (R, 135 mins).
YOUNG ADULT (US - 2011)
Despite mostly positive reviews and early awards buzz, YOUNG ADULT disappeared from theaters fairly quickly. Probably a variety of reasons: released at the wrong time, not really a wide-release, "in theaters everywhere" kind of movie, or people realized they were still sick of JUNO screenwriter Diablo Cody. However annoying she may be, YOUNG ADULT is Cody's most accomplished, mature script thus far (no snarky, hipster witticisms or catchphrases to be heard here), but she and JUNO director Jason Reitman didn't have anywhere near the same level of audience interest this time out. That's a shame, because it's an excellent, difficult film that's not for all tastes, and it's indeed one that's occasionally just too dark and uncomfortable. I wish I'd seen this in theaters just to experience the baby-naming party with an audience. Charlize Theron, in a great performance, is Mavis Gary, an alcoholic, self-destructive, Minneapolis-based ghost writer of a past-its-prime Young Adult fiction series. 37 and recently divorced, she decides to head back to Mercury, the small Minnesota town of her youth, with the intention of reconnecting and running off with her high school boyfriend Buddy (Patrick Wilson), even though he's happily married with a newborn daughter. For most of the film, Theron's Mavis comes across as bitchy and self-absorbed, and completely oblivious to the fact that her plan is selfish and ridiculous. But through her interactions with Buddy and with forgotten high school outcast Matt (Patton Oswalt), left disabled from a beating he received from a group of jocks ("the same ones you used to blow during lunch," he reminds her), and with whom she forms an unlikely bond, we start to see just how much pain and sadness Mavis is desperately and unsuccessfully trying to hide.
And even despite that, she's still a profoundly unlikable person who still thinks she's better than everyone else, which may be the biggest reason this didn't catch on with mainstream audiences who demand likable protagonists. Mavis is likely going home not just for Buddy, but also because, anonymous professionally as well as personally in the big city, Mercury is the one place she's still "somebody." The film takes no pleasure in Mavis' misery and impending breakdown, nor does it let the outcasts off the hook, as in the revelatory scene where Matt's sister (Collette Wolfe) still resorts to kissing Mavis' ass in a pathetic, 20-years-past-high school attempt to win her favor. Theron and Oswalt are both terrific. Between this and the equally squirm-inducing BIG FAN, Oswalt has evolved into a gifted character actor. YOUNG ADULT is funny, tragic, devastating, angry, and bleakly depressing in equal doses. One late plot turn doesn't ring entirely true and the finale seems entirely too rushed (at just past 90 minutes, this actually might've felt more complete if it was 10-15 minutes longer) but this is the kind of film, like an EMPIRE RECORDS or a DONNIE DARKO, just to name two films that initially fell through the cracks only to be discovered some time later on VHS or DVD, that speaks to a certain age group at the time of its release and is embraced as something very personal and meaningful to them. And it's a film that will have staying power and be able to find new viewers who get to the right age to relate to it, and who may find themselves pushing 40 and nowhere near where they wanted to be in life. YOUNG ADULT was sold to the JUNO crowd, but it should've included the caveat "Give it 20 years...you'll get it then." (R, 93 mins)
