The most talked-about non-competition film at this year's Cannes Film Festival was Lars von Trier's The House That Jack Built. Not to mention the cameo appearance of Uma Thurman, the feud between Russ von Trier and Cannes alone is already a good talking point.
Originally a darling of Cannes, Las von Trier was turned away for several years for a suspected anti-Semitic remark, before finally being released this year. There may also be some mustard, because when the media field was screened, the official cannes opening video before the film was not broadcast.
"This House I Made" is a perfect expression of The personal style of Ras von Trier. The film, which lasts more than 2 hours, tells the story of a serial killer killing time and time again. He penetrates the heart of the psychopath in extreme detail, tirelessly describes his motives for killing, and combines a large number of works of art with his own films to illustrate the beauty of his extreme art. This is a genre film with distinct author characteristics. In the narrative of the main storyline, Las von Trier maintains the style of the shots since the "Dougmar 95", shaky movements, rough push and pull, these handheld shots create a tense and suspenseful atmosphere, and have a sense of reality.
In terms of character building, he obviously once again contributed his mental illness, and each incomprehensible murder detail and extremely cruel bloody taste were repeatedly and gradually exposed, once again successfully provoking the audience. The introduction of various arts such as painting, music, and film has combined the extremes of killing with the extremes of art. Ras von Trier was the murderer who made the killing into a work of art.
It is undeniable that extreme art also has its own beauty. Detached from moral judgment, the art of Ras von Trier can be established. Art has various forms of expression, and "evil" is not impossible. But as a human being, Russ von Trier lacked some soul. Moreover, behind his arrogance and invincibility, he also left himself a way back. He has always been good at expressing and willing to show perverted mental states, which was questioned a lot from the beginning. But at the time, Ras von Trier used "self-psychotherapy" to explain his work. This statement is cunning in itself, because you can't verify whether he is really "treating" or whether the madman simply does not speak well.
In "This House I Made", this cunning and concern becomes more obvious. By and large, he sentences the perverted murderer to hell, and in the film he constantly questions the murderer's aesthetics with the words of the hell guide. In fact, however, his intentions for the murderer are clearly more prominent, and those doubts become very pale under the meticulous and in-depth lens. The murderer, in his dialogue with the Leader of Hell, uses art to excuse himself, in the same way as Ras von Trier himself.
This has to make people feel that those doubts and endings are just the back roads paved by Ras von Trier. His attitude is actually more partial to the protagonist, but he still has some concerns and cannot completely take off the skin of human beings. His previous remarks about "self-therapy" became rhetorical, as if he didn't really want treatment at all, or that treatment had failed.
Needless to say, Russ von Trier was brilliant. But if this talent is still only stuck in the same pathological expression as before, then "This House is Made by Me" is of little value, because these aesthetic attitudes have been clearly defined in previous films, and even more extreme, they have not compensated for what Russ von Trier originally lacked. We do get tired of the repeated political correctness of this year's Cannes Film Festival, but good works of art still need some spirit that can connect with human beings. It's possible to understand the logic of a pervert, but it's really hard to understand a pervert.