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It's director and professional provocateur Lars von Trier's 56th birthday today. Happy birthday, Lars! You may recall that we called his film Melancholia our favorite of 2011. point being, we like and admire him quite a bunch. (The Hitler thing was a clusterfuck of misunderstandings and purposeful obnoxiousness, to be sure, but we think we know what he was getting at after reading this.)
Just last week we heard that his next film Nymphomaniac - following as he puts it "the erotic life of one woman from the age of zero to the age of 50" - is going to be two movies... meaning that the first film will presumably be entirely about the sexual shenanigans of a child... that ought to go entirely unremarked upon, right? It will star Charlotte Gainsbourg, his current muse-of-sorts - really she just seems to be the one who can handle working with him over and over again.
Anyway it being his birthday we wanted to do something (especially since he's sworn off doing press ever again so we're sure we won't be hearing from him, at least until he sees fit to admit he didn't mean that), so here's a totally random list of the first five things we think of when we think of Lars Von Trier movies. We'll start with the end...
... of everything in Melancholia
The "I've Seen It All" sequence from Dancer in the Dark - This was always my favorite number from the soundtrack, but I'm obviously biased towards it since it's Thom Yorke on the recorded version (it's Peter Stormare in the film). But the sound of the train running through it is so good.
The orgy of The Idiots
The arrival of Udo in The Kingdom
And of course, 'Chaos reigns!!!" from Antichrist
I could have gone with a list of the subtler shadings and character work that make his movies more than provocations, that make them masterpieces - watching Emily Watson struggle to be a good wife to a broken man in Breaking the Waves, Siobhan Fallon crying with Bjork before the gallows, Nicole Kidman getting into her father's car at the end of Dogville... but that list would have been such a downer, man. Now we've had fun instead! Whee! Mutant babies and people making fun of the handicapped! Fun! What are your favorite Lars Von Trier movie moments?
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3 comments:
The raven from Antichrist. That thing has always freaked me out.
Finding out where the little ghost girl's corpse is, from The Kingdom.
Scatterheart from Dancer In The Dark. It always broke my wee heart that even after what the policeman did, she imagined him as kind, forgiving, and helpful here.
Great list, Dale! Everything about Selma in Dancer in the Dark is just so heartbreaking that I get on the verge of tears just considering it. Damn that movie!
- Dogville ending. ("I owe her that!")
- I've seen it all. - Dancer in the Dark
- That scene near the end in Breaking the Waves, when Bess is on the boat to Udo (for the second time). She's desperately trying to communicate to God. He answers. The look of relief and joy on her face makes me cry.
- Breaking the Waves ending.
- Ernst-Hugo Järegård character in Riget. One of the funniest and greatest performances ever. "Danskjävlar" hahaha.
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