a new lars von trier poll and discussion thread so we can keep all the yelling in one place for a while

he's no thomas vinterberg, that's for sure

Probably love Festen more than any single one of these tbf but love LvT. Wondering whether The Kingdom is a troll vote. Fucking Danes

Thomes Vinterberg poll! I watched It's All About Love recently, and it's even worse than I suspected.

The Kingdom is a very good choice.

I feel like Lars's sign-offs at the end of each episode bolster the case for him as a troll

I find The Idiots his most powerful work. Dogville is great too.

Kind of want to see It's All About Love for the overblown Tom Tykwer-ness of it all, while of course knowing it will be a pile of nonsense

I remember those outros being legitimately funny. I wonder if they were inspired by the Log Lady intros.

As for this poll, I need to finish watching The Kingdom as I suspect that'll be my vote, it's amazing (and yes, hilarious). Melancholia has also haunted me deeply since seeing it and I'd call it close to a masterpiece. tt, who got me into LVT, should be able to offer more, but I'm pro-LVT as it stands, while also slightly overwhelmed by the scale of his misanthropy

results from last time

The Kingdom / Riget (TV miniseries, 1994) 11
Idioterne / The Idiots (1998, part two of the "Golden Heart" trilogy) 7
Breaking the Waves (1996, part one of the "Golden Heart" trilogy) 6
Dancer in the Dark (2000, part three of the "Golden Heart" trilogy) 5
The Five Obstructions (2003) 4
Europa / Zentropa (1991, part three of the "Europe" trilogy) 4
Dogville (2003, part one of the "USA: Land of Opportunity" trilogy) 4
The Element of Crime (1984, part one of the "Europe" trilogy) 2
Manderlay (2005, part two of the "USA: Land of Opportunity" trilogy) 0
Direktøren for det hele / The Boss of It All (2006) 0
Medea (TV movie, 1988) 0
Epidemic (1987, part two of the "Europe" trilogy) 0
The Kingdom II / Riget II (TV miniseries, 1997) 0

I confess I still have not seen The Idiots

A weird thing happened when I watched The Idiots. I hated the first half so so much, and stopped watching it. Then I saw the rest of it the next morning and really quite liked it. LVT requires lowering of defences

i see the idiots every time i log on to ilxor dot com amirite

ayoooooo

Breaking the Waves is probably still my favourite of his movies, definitely on a visual level alone. Nymphomaniac maybe the one I have most thoughts and feelings about

I've hated a number of his films, but mostly liked Nymphomaniac very much til the last 5 minutes.

Probably would put The Kingdom at or near the top. Probably need a rematch of BtW and some other early ones.

I feel like Lars's sign-offs at the end of each episode bolster the case for him as a troll

― look I'm sorry it was only a joke (Noodle Vague), Thursday, May 17, 2018 2:41 PM (ten minutes ago)

I felt like this was definitely evident with the ending of Nymphomaniac

I have no problem with an ending that involves an incel getting murdered.

i've only seen breaking the waves, dancer in the dark, and antichrist; of those i'd vote for btw, though dancer in the dark was v v important to me when i was younger

the musical scenes in ditd are all so beautiful

Voted The Element of Crime.

Probably Dogville but compelled to vote for Breaking the Waves.

fond memories of seeing and being overwhelmed by Dancer in the Dark as a #teen, mentioning it to my then-girlfriend, and then feeling a bone-deep horror when I learned that she'd taken my praise as a recommendation and rented it for a family viewing. they did not finish it. she invited me over to finish it and when the last scene ended and Selma's fate is sealed, she said "good!"

I was yelling for hanging by the third reel

Melancholia - the ash scene is one of the most perfect depictions of depression on film. Fuck Lars tho

easy on the spoilers imo

The Kingdom is a very good choice.

― Frederik B, Donnerstag, 17. Mai 2018

Melancholia (. Most of the rest can die in a fire.

Melancholia is the only one I've watched in full since the Breaking The Waves/The Idiots, but I still found it immensely annoying! It is probably fair to say I find his movies completely unwatchable, and have tried to watch many of these.

Alfred otm

Wish I could take back the 5 hours of my life I wasted on nymphomaniac. Total trash tone deaf movie

I want the 20 mins back it stole from me!

tbf on Melancholia, it's quite a decent movie, it's probably just my LvT hate that has intensified a lot since I watched it.

Find most of his stuff p tiresome but the Kingdom is all-time great so that

We don't a 'An Abuser who isn't worth shit' option what gives.

Antichrist (2009)
Melancholia (2011)
Nymphomaniac (2013)

From seeing about 20 mins of Antichrist and about an hour of Nymphomaniac I suspect he has become a better filmmaker in recent years (plus a couple of ppl I know really rated Melncholia (and one other disliked it)).

KING DUUUUMMMMM

antichrist is extremely well-made and i’ll never watch it again

breaking the waves and the idiots probably the best I've seen. both v "problematic", the idiots because, well, you know. and breaking the waves is extremely sexist (while there does seem to be some sympathy towards the protagonist an über-naïve and mentally simple heroine who is debased and violated to the point of death is just sexist per se imo).

We don't a 'An Abuser who isn't worth shit' option what gives.

― xyzzzz__, Thursday, May 17, 2018 9:54 PM (thirty-nine minutes ago)

guess we'd better never have a hitchcock poll

I read the plot summary of Melancholia on Wikipedia and couldn't make heads nor tails of it. Which is fine, I can see Kirsten Dunst in plenty of other things.

Nymphomaniac is responsible for lots of Google hits for my blog thanks to its title, so I should've voted for it.

This poll is coming out of another conversation regarding LvT's latest film J.D. Don't worry about Hitch, he is dead now.

Dancer in the Dark is my favorite by a long shot. Breaking the Waves 2nd. Dogville I need to rewatch. Melancholia underrated imo.

I really love Melancholia. No doubt Von Trier is a class 1 asshole and I don't really have a lot of interest in Dancer or Breaking any more, but Melancholia made me really appreciate him again. I also think Dogville is extraordinary but mainly because of Kidman.

is maderlay any good or is it garbage like everyone said it was?

i liked breaking the waves tho it’s been years since i saw it. medieval catholic female martyr saint in male presbyterian environment seems like a good premise for a film.

also enjoyed the kingdom. FUCKING DANES and all that.

melancholia was dogshit

It’s great (Manderlay, that is). That said, I haven’t actually returned to watch it again and it’s probably for the best that Wasington was never completed... But at the time I felt it was on a par with Dogville but for the performances.

No one’s with me on this, but Antichrist is my absolute favourite. Followed by Breaking the Waves and Melancholia.

The masochism of his female characters never reads for me as a flat cruelty or misogyny, it is always overflowing with projective identification and revenge as reparation and women destroying (or trying to) the systems that made them. He’s not playing god with a litany of weak female characters or anything, it’s clear that his (and our) identification is with them and he wants us to feel all this disorganised pain, and it’s very powerful and memorable.

on second thought Melancholia is way better than Breaking the Waves, I really need to rewatch it. and watch Antichrist for the first time

thanx poll

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

The Kingdom is still the correct answer

It’s great (Manderlay, that is).

It's uh ... problematic ... idk if it codes differently for non-Americans in the same vein as the uh, famous bottle opener of yore, but it has similar issues w/r/t race as a lot of the other films do to women's issues. And it that regard, maybe it isn't "misogyny" or "cruelty" but it sure felt that way while I was watching the "let's have horrible things happen to nice women trilogy" ... idk, as I've gotten older, I have a lot less patience for films made by white European men being arty and manipulative through beating people over the head with depictions of trauma that people who aren't white men actually experience.

The Kingdom is still cool. Zentropa was good iirc.

that's kind of why I like Melancholia the most, Kirsten Dunst is resigned and basically happy to die, she's one of his only protagonists that comes out with her dignity intact, *and* for once a female protagonist that takes glee along with LVT at everyone else's misery.

That's ... kinda not what he's all about tho? (Which, fine. Fuck him and all.)

Well, I partially take that back. His career does build up to the realization that women absorb suffering in ways that men are laughably incapable of reaching.

tbh I think I voted for Dancer in the Dark

Well, I mean yeah. Björk.

sticking to my guns and voting for Nympho as it's his culminating work

as I've gotten older, I have a lot less patience for films made by white European men being arty and manipulative through beating people over the head with depictions of trauma

^^^

I don't watch this guy's movies, everything I read about them says his spiel is a highly aestheticized version of some stuff that seemed super intense to me as a teenager and now seems...easy and cheap and cowardly from an artistic standpoint

like, if I need this kind of thing, I can watch "The Last House on the Left" or "Flower of Flesh and Blood" or whatever, stuff that's a little more forthright about where its makers' interests lie

Or something like Mizoguchis films. They're also all about the suffering of women. Like, half of all art is about the suffering of women. Lars von Trier has just always been more explicit about it, but I don't think that's a bad thing.

Voted for Dogville; I've only seen it, Waves, and Melancholia, and/but it's the only one I think I'd willingly watch again.

Like, half of all art is about the suffering of women.

― Frederik B, Saturday, 29 December 2018 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Half of all art in the west is about the suffering of baby jesus. But well done for trying to equate the empathy and humanism of Mizoguchi with the misogyny and tantrums of LvT.

“LVT is like Mizoguchi” is some galaxy brain shit

p sure zero art in the west is about the suffering of baby jesus tbh

Jesus's suffering came later

Mizoguchi is misogynistic as fuck, lol.

I think there's definitely some art about the suffering of baby jesus. The flight into Egypt and stuff like that. + his circumcision?

never even heard either of those stories so I wouldn't say 50% of western art is about those two particular episodes, and whether any suffering was involved with either seems kinda debatable anyway

No, you're absolutely right, I just got a bit distracted. It's just, I'm a church singer, and the sunday on the circumcision of Jesus is one of the weirder sundays of the year...

The circumcision of Jesus is depicted often in western art but depict it as something the baby Jesus is suffering. The account of the circumcision in the bible is very brief.in Catholicism the fact that Jesus was given his name is what's focused on (It's called the feast of the Holy name or something similar).

"It isn't depicted as" should be in there

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/40/Bellini-circumcision-NG1455-fm.jpg/600px-Bellini-circumcision-NG1455-fm.jpg

Hmm…

This wilful mis-representation of my post by ILX's resident art historians has been worth it

Mizoguchi may have perhaps been concern trolling but misogynistic is a reach - especially when using him to explain LvT away.

"concern trolling"?? nah. yes he made many movies about suffering women, but the attitude and the touch is a world away from LVT. slice of life/melodrama vs. sadistic playhouse. LVT's style is certainly valid and he's made lots of good movies but I don't think the comparison holds.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

I agree that the comparison doesn't hold, just pretending that Fred had a point for a couple of seconds.

I’m the one who voted Epidemic. Glad Medea got a vote and that The Kingdom won.

Well, a third series of the The Kingdom certainly wasn't on my list of predictions for 2021 but there you have it.

😳

omg really?????

oh FRABJOUS MOTHERFUCKING DAY

shame half of the o.g. cast are dead, like

Danskjävlar!

yes. yes they are.

Hour-long interview from late 2020. I love the part where he says "Let me tell you a funny story about David Lynch" which is really a story about himself and not that funny, but utterly him. Loves Bowie and Bruno Ganz. He says his trembling is from anti-depressants, but I wonder if it's alcoholism/withdrawal related?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXWcl6OuVw8

Breaking the Waves, Dancer In the Dark, and Dogville seemed increasingly extreme as heroine martyr films, but then Dogville ultimately was a revenge film

The last film of his I enjoyed was The Boss of It All. Antichrist and Melancholia had their virtues, but being pleasant viewing experiences wasn't one of them - the sense of artistic struggle and general emotional malaise was too strong. I put off seeing Nymphomaniac until the long version became available, but if it did, I haven't watched it; I don't know whether the thought of seeing his last two films makes me indifferent or repulsed.
It's strange because in the 90s he was so fascinating, even when I didn't "agree" with the films (like Breaking the Waves) or he seemed to be playing with a joker persona. A real dark cloud came over his work in the last 15 years or so, and I don't think it's just depression.

Diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease

https://cphpost.dk/?p=137468

He says his trembling is from anti-depressants, but I wonder if it's alcoholism/withdrawal related?

Oh God

Well goddamn...

THE KINGDOM EXODUS along with restored KINGDOM I and II coming soon!

Watching The Boss of It All - its weird editing and jump cuts seem to prefigure much of the YouTube/TikTok style