The House That Jack Built

Dir: Lars von Trier

2018

*****

In 1995, Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg presented their manifesto for a new cinematic movement, which they called Dogme 95. The Dogme 95 concept, which led to international interest in Danish film, inspired filmmakers all over the world. Essentially, was an attempt to take back power for the director as artist, as opposed to the studio through following simple rules to create film-making based on the traditional values of story, acting, and theme, and excluding the use of elaborate special effects or technology. As an inspiring film maker at the time I was thrilled at the concept and I still am today. By 1995 von Trier had already made The Element of Crime (1984), Epidemic (1987), and Europa (1991) and had proven his worth as a great director. The trilogy of films illuminated traumatic periods in Europe, both current and historically. Each film was challenging, both in content and visually. He once said that ‘A film should be like a stone in your shoe’, it should challenge you and you should question it – always. In 1996’s Breaking the Waves he showed us beauty where we’d never seen it before, he challenged ignorance with his provocative 1998 film The Idiots and he made a stunning alternative musical with Dancer in the Dark. People then started to suggest he hated women, when he was clearly celebrating their strength and writing characters that had never been written for women before in a male dominated world. He continued to challenge himself by throwing out the rule book, making brilliant comedy and fascinating documentaries. With Dogville and Manderlay he literally stripped a film of all of its unnecessary elements and made one of the most profound films of the millennium so far. I believe the criticism fuelled him even more but he was never going to spell out what he was trying to achieve, as it is fairly obvious to those who are concentrating and are bothered to think for themselves. No other director has deconstructed every genre of film like von Trier has. Antichrist is the ultimate horror film, Melancholia is the ultimate apocalypse movie and Nymphomaniac shows up the porn industry for what it is. We’ve become so detached that audiences no longer know what true horror is, or what it is we’re watching. Most apocalypse movies are awful, they play with our emotions and manipulate them and the porn industry is grim and it is brutal. It is a misunderstanding to think von Trier is a sick and twisted soul, he’s not, we are for watching such garbage that doesn’t challenge these concepts. We buy these cheap horror films, emotionally-manipulative apocalypse movies and we download porn. Surely von Trier is just giving us what we want? What he has been doing all these years is showing us the ingredients of the films we’ve been enjoying all these years. We shouldn’t be angry at him when we discover that they are full of the things we like the least. We also shouldn’t overlook the positive messages his films give. In Breaking the Waves he shows the power of love over all things, he explores the meaning of true sacrifice in Dance in the Dark and in Antichrist he shows us all of our real fears. He doesn’t enjoy the suffering of women, he’s highlighting the cruelty of men and the clear inequality that exists in our world. He isn’t provoking his audience to annoy them, he’s asking you to think and it seems he’s doing it genre by genre. What he’s doing isn’t new either. Many film makers have used confrontational methods in the examination of existential, social and political issues and many have explored the themes of mercy, sacrifice and mental health. It’s just that he does it more effectively, better in my opinion. In The House That Jack Built Lars von Trier explores many levels, including horror, religion and the serial killer genre. True crime documentaries are as popular as ever, as are case studies and recreations. People have a morbid fascination and they like to be scared. Detail is also very important and it seems knowing the facts ins’t enough, people want to see the evidence and the graphic crime photos. It’s dark sensationalism. It’s perfectly natural, you can be interested in such things and not be a complete psychopath. Thing is, in some cases, people have become obsessive, which is unhealthy. Then you have series like Dexter that puts the serial killer in the position of likable protagonist. Interestingly, von Trier almost made The House That Jack Built as a television series. We all like a good thriller and some serial killer films are masterpieces (Se7en) but in real life there is nothing nice about killing lots of people and von Trier is pointing that out. The film is gratuitous because it has to be. There is a scene in the movie whereby a young Jack snips the leg off of a duckling and there has been a huge backlash about it with von Trier being reported many times over to various different authorities. Of course it wasn’t a real duckling, it was a simple special effect but people have got it in for the director. Interestingly though, PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) defended the film in a statement praising its accurate portrayal of the link between adolescent animal abuse and psychopathy and for the realistic special effects. Thankfully there are still some people around who are intelligent enough to understand what von Trier is doing. Matt Dillon plays Jack and it is one of the best performances of his career. It’s not really a film about serial killing either, it’s really an exploration of narcissism. It’s quite timely. Each killing is separated into chapters and in each chapter we learn a little more about how Jack thinks. Psychopaths walk among us, they don’t all kill, many run large corporations and govern countries, but von Trier explores the condition through a classic theme. It is probably the most realistic portrayal of a psychopathic serial killer in a film ever, much research went into it, so it’s ridiculous that a society so obsessed with true crime stories are so repulsed by it and von Trier. Like most of von Triers films, the difficult themes and hard-to-watch stories are all a set up for the eventual conclusion and no one ends a film quite as spectacularly as he. Throughout the film we hear a voice talking to Jack and assume it is the voice inside his head, there is an element of ambiguity here, so it still might be and the vision of Dante's Inferno might also be what Jack sees when he dies. However, even if it is real, the scene is the perfect representation of narcissism. It has been suggested to von Trier in the past that his films are too nihilistic and he beat the press to it by declaring that the film is celebrating "the idea that life is evil and soulless". He doesn’t believe this, he’s having fun with the press who will print what they want anyway, like he did during the press conference for Melancholia when he declared he was a Nazi. He’s not a Nazi. He really is just showing life for what it is, which is often brutal and cruel, like nature, but he always, in every single one of his films, shows us something beautiful. One of the greatest films of all time is Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom. It’s a very hard film to watch but when explaining a subject such as fascism you have to show it for what it is, whether it be cruel, ridiculous or whatever. There is no beauty in Salò, but there is in von Triers films. Breaking the Waves has the greatest ending to a film of all time. The director once said “True values entail suffering. That’s the way we think. All in all, we tend to view melancholia as more true. We prefer music and art to contain a touch of melancholia. So melancholia in itself is a value. Unhappy and unrequited love is more romantic than happy love. For we don’t think that’s completely real, do we?…Longing is true. It may be that there’s no truth at all to long for, but the longing itself is true. Just like pain is true. We feel it inside. It’s part of our reality.” That doesn’t sound like narcissism or nihilism to me, more like romantic realism. The House That Jack Built is an uncomfortable watch because it needs to be, von Trier is giving the public what they say they want, so the criticism towards him is quite ridiculous. People get angry with him because he’s addressing everything that is wrong with modern day film, including the audience. I really don’t get it, surely once you can see the beauty in ugliness, this ugly world becomes more beautiful? He wouldn’t have to be as brutal as he is if more film makers did their jobs properly and challenged their audience.