The centerpiece—soul, even—of every Lars von Trier film is a scene of compelling destruction. Breaking the Waves (1996), a fictional tale, has Emily Watson on a stretcher believing that the love of her life needed her raped and beaten in order to survive himself. In the 2003 documentary The Five Obstructions, von Trier’s real-life mentor Jørgen Leth is served an elaborate meal in the red-light district of Mumbai. The local poverty serves to highlight Leth’s wealth and privilege, of course, but we watch something more complex erode in the relationship between the two Danish filmmakers—respect, maybe, or admiration, and the combination is gutting and awful. Melancholia (2011) famously depicts the end of everything, full stop, and the film both begins and ends with the most aesthetically pleasing images of our own demise yet viewed onscreen. That the sites of destruction are often women’s bodies has led to frequent accusations of misogyny on the part of the filmmaker.
Yet von Trier is no remorseless killer. In fact, the tired Infernoesque structure is the filmmaker’s way of acknowledging universal order: there is a right and a wrong, he wants us to understand, and certain acts—acts that he himself has depicted on film and therefore has perpetrated in real life in order to film, and which his critics have called into question—are profoundly, eternally wrong. Jack flaunts his crimes to passersby, to victims, to on-duty officers of the peace, yet they continue. Von Trier has suggested that this is a nod to Trumpism, but it more basically functions as a restoration of order. Von Trier is comfortable crossing boundaries when boundaries are clearly marked. In American culture right now, however, the boundaries between right and wrong have become quite blurry. Von Trier feels the need to remind us of the centuries-old distinction between right and wrong so we can properly condemn him for crossing those lines. Look at this horrible man! He hated women before the president did!
Directed by Lars von Trier. R, 152 min. Now streaming online.
