Does Lars von Trier’s ‘vomitive’ new film spell the end for provocative cinema? https://www.theguardian.com/film/201...ocative-cinema
These are the first two paragraphs in the article by Xan Brooks:
"There is a stampede to get into The House That Jack Built and then, not long after, there is a stampede to get out. At the morning screening of the new Lars von Trier film at Cannes, I try to keep tabs on the number of mass walkouts. The first occurs when Matt Dillon’s bug-eyed psychopath sticks a kitchen knife in a breastbone; the second when a serene little boy cuts the leg off a duckling. I think the third might take place during the shooting at a picnic, although, by this point, I confess I am slightly losing track. On screen, Dillon’s character embarks on a lengthy discourse about wine – and, for some reason, this scene provokes a mass exodus of its own. Has the wine-making speech thrown these filmgoers a lifeline? It is barely 10 in the morning and they are running away to get loaded.
If one had to dramatise Von Trier’s recent history at the Cannes film festival, it could play as a series of entrances and exits, like a Feydeau farce without the laughs. The director walks into the press conference and jokes that he is a Nazi. The festival declares him persona non grata and has him bundled out. The director walks in with his comeback production. The public recoils, turns its back and walks off. One hundred invited guests reportedly absconded from Monday night’s world premiere, and a similar number exited the press screening on Tuesday. The House That Jack Built (a metaphysical serial-killer tale, constructed along similar lines to his previous film, Nymphomaniac) has been variously described as “vomitous”, “disgusting” and “irredeemably unpleasant”. Entertainment reporter Roger Friedman called it a “vile movie” that “should never have been made”. Except that, wouldn’t you know it, Friedman bailed out before the end, too."
He does say "As it happens, I found myself gripped by The House That Jack Built. It is enraging and irresponsible, brilliant and bold, an outrageous joke shouted out of the abyss. But all of that is beside the point. If I loathed the picture with a passion, I would still want it included. Von Trier needs cinema and cinema needs him right back.
No doubt about it, the film industry’s in a mess. The mood at Cannes this year has been nervous, uncertain, while there remain so many changes the organisers still need to make. The festival needs more women in the main competition (and chances are it can only do that if the industry moves first). It has to find space for a fresh generation of film-makers and make peace with the fact that its days as a crucial Oscar springboard are now done. But this, I’m afraid, is not all that’s required.
What, after all, do we look for in a film? Is the best movie the one that soothes us, reassures us; that basically tells us what we already know, but manages to do so in novel and entertaining new ways? If so, fair enough. But for cinema to remain valid, it needs the counterweight, too: some hard shadow to make the light glow more brightly. It needs films that challenge and disturb, that appal and revolt; that have us bolting towards the exit in search of a stiff drink at 10am. In these troubled times, of course, there is a natural urge to play safe. But it is at such anxious moments that we need the provocateurs most of all.
Cometh the hour, cometh the idiot. This is the very worst year for Von Trier to be in Cannes. Which is another way of saying that it is the absolute best."
I'm very willing to be made uncomfortable and have preconceptions challenged by films but, based on what I've read in the accompanying review by Peter Bradshaw (
https://www.theguardian.com/film/201...18-matt-dillon), I'm not sure I'm entirely ready for
The House That Jack Built. Just thinking about it and without having seen the film, the thought of the duckling scene is making me uncomfortable, slightly nauseous and angry. That a film can do that to someone who hasn't seen it is, in a pretty warped way, impressive.