Von Trier's ANTICHRIST trailer

I don't know if any filmmaker has frustrated me as much as Lars Von Trier. His 1991 film Zentropa (AKA Europa) absolutely knocked me off my pins. It was an absorbing thriller that was as formally daring as an Orson Welles picture. It used obvious rear projection and other techniques to constantly remind you that what you were watching wasn't real, yet somehow every scene pulled you deeper into its twisty, disturbing story. (Click the picture at left to buy the film on Amazon.)

Unfortunately Von Trier is a very angry and arguably self-defeating artist, and he has spent the last two decades doing everything he can to bury his own talent and alienate his audiences. This tendency reached its zenith with his famous Dogme 95 manifesto - a list of filmmaking commandments that forbids special effects, flashy camera moves and almost everything else that made Zentropa so amazing. His movies became ugly to watch and increasingly ugly in spirit.

But I am very intrigued by his upcoming horror movie, Antichrist. Von Trier has ditched his Dogme straitjacket, and watching the Antichrist trailer I feel just a little of that old Zentropa tingle. (It even begins with a creepy hypnotist voiceover, just like Zentropa!)

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Technocrati tags: [Antichrist][Lars Von Trier]