Well, don’t start with Manderlay, that’s for sure (not that it’s bad, I love it, but it needs the context of a career).
Start at the beginning, of course. His E trilogy (Element of Crime, Epidemic, Europa) all readily available on dvd.
If you like what you see after that, go for his television series, The Kingdom.
Then go into the history/background of Dogme ’95 and his entry, The Idiots.
Follow that with Breaking the Waves and/or Dancer in the Dark. These are his two crowning achievements as a filmmaker, in my opinion.
Then you’ll be ready for Dogville and Manderlay, which are direct responses to his own career thus far, and an intentional assault on the very movement he helped create.
Actually, don’t even touch The Kingdom until you’re sure that you’re a fan of his work.
…word.
“Breaking the Waves.” If you like this, everything else is a more experimental variation on similar themes of self-sacrifice, suffering, degradation, misanthropy, social boundary obliteration, class struggles, etc. Though, I can’t speak for Epidemic, Medea, or Europa, I have seen 7 of his films.
If you didn’t like “Breaking the Waves,” try “The Kingdom.” It is Von Trier at his least Von Trier-ness. It a TV show that is essentially ER meets Twin Peaks. If you like that, there is the American remake (Kingdom Hospital) and Twin Peaks.
Netflix doesn’t have the Criterion release of the Element of Crime, but an older DVD version. i’m always weary about watching old DVDs, especially from 1980s foreign/art films. sometimes the available editions are really crappy. should i wait to find the Criterion version somewhere, or just start with whats available? basically, is the other print good enough to watch?
@Marq
I saw it on VHS, and the picture was very difficult to make out. “Element of Crime” is a visually confusing movie, featuring an orange-yellow filter and plenty of blue neon. I’d wait to watch it on Criterion, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if it was still quite opaque in many scenes.
But The Kingdom is two season commitment, Vellaem, not to mention loaded to the gills with down syndrome dish washers, and adult fetuses.
Not really something I would recommend to someone who isn’t already a fan. I would actually agree with you on starting at the best, with Breaking the Waves. Though I still think the whole E trilogy is necessary viewing to better appreciate the rest of his work.
@Brandon
Thanks, I’ll round out the E-series then. I hadn’t planned on it. I watched too many of his films back-to-back a few years ago, and grew tired of his preoccupations, when I actually shouldn’t have tried to power through his filmography. The guy is taxing and bleak. He has some of great stuff blended with shameless gimmicks in my opinion.
“The Kingdom” is my favorite, and one of the best TV series of all time. It was a shame that Ernst-Hugo Järegård died before the third series could begin production. Von Trier scrapped its planning after his death, since his character was so central to the show. Also, the down syndrome dishwashers are creepily great narrators.
…down-syndrome dishwashers…
i think i’ll save The Kingdom for last and watch his films for a while. thanks for the advice everyone!
I highly recommend BREAKING THE WAVES, with this advice:
The captivating opening scene is essential to appreciating the entire story, and that scene simply can’t be appreciated unless you have watched the trial exchanges in Carl Dreyer’s THE PASSION OF JOAN OF ARC.
In fact, the first two lines
(Bess: “His name is Jan.”
“Elder: I do not know him.”)
have their strongest possible resonance if you read the events that follow as phenomena of the invisible world.
I’m not talking about magical realism. This goes all the way back to Christ verbally sparring with the Pharisees.
Afterwards, take a look at BIRTH, and see what happens when yet another woman is denied her miracle.
Seated in that auditorium, oblivious to the concert as she dwells on the phenomena she thinks she has encountered, Nicole Kidman actually recalls Falconetti for a moment.
Not to harp on this one picture, but I think it is Lars Von Trier’s best work. I meant to say in the earlier post that the beginning of the 3rd chapter of BTW has a surprise that is unmatched by anything in his other pictures.
That moment also brings into question, at first, what we can assume about Emily Watson’s character.
Soon enough it doesn’t matter, any more than it matters in The Passion of Joan of Arc whether Joan has had an authentic spiritual encounter or not. Von Trier cleverly removes from the table, so to speak, any consideration of the objective authenticity of his character’s thoughts and beliefs. I’m struggling to find an articulate expression of how removing any concerns over what is “real” somehow lends, at least for a moment, the sensation that moral and ethical questions have been vacated as well.
It’s a kind of manipulation, and a similar thing happens in BIRTH, which was inexplicably maligned at the time of its release.
I’d say Dogville for someone new to his work. It’s a good decompression chamber to enter his world, and as Brandon said above, is a very brilliant deconstruction of his original Dogme.
Of all his films, I think Dogville is the one that lays out his perspectives of humanity, sexuality and power most clearly. Not as subtle or complex as Breaking The Waves, but more polished than his earlier work, and not as brilliantly obfuscated like Medea
I started with Europa, which i really enjoyed, does this mean i won’t understand/enjoy the previous 2 films in the E-series?
There’s nothing wrong with never having seen a von Trier. You’re probaqbly a happier person for it. There are so many better directors to catch up on.
wha, Trier is one of the best alive working now..I say see Dancer in the Dark first, I saw Breaking the Waves first then Dancer right after. I was disappointed when Dancer looked like it was going to be just like Breaking the Waves, look-aesthetic-wise, I didn’t get why they were shot the way they were shot till I saw Dancer which makes it more obvious. Anyways, I didn’t enjoy Breaking the Waves, and I don’t want to see it again, but I should cause it is good, just really dreary. Dancer in the Dark is more mainstream, more American anyways..his early/first work I don’t get yet, Epidemic, Element of Crime, they were really cool but I didn’t follow what was what. Dogville is great and I’m in-between Manderlay (that’s the sequel), which so far is pretty cool.
I’m a fan of his because he takes his work serious enough to question the movie-making medium and constantly/consistently experiment with it, and to me he’s been very successful with it.
Check out the Boss of it All if you want a light comedy..
Dr Lemonglow, your arguments are nicely put but all they do is point to how von Trier is finger-painting in the margins compared to the serious art of Carl Dreyer.
Matthew, on a drear-o-meter, you rate Dancer as more chipper than Breaking the Waves? What kind of curve are you using?
I gave up on Von Trier after Dogsville: vowed never to waste a minute of my life on him ever again
Only one I’ve Seen was Dancer in The Dark. DON"T See it, it is brutally depressing but also the more I think about this film the more I dislike it. It is extremely flawed and Lars Von Trier seems to break the boundaries of probability just to make it more depressing. Certain scenes near stupidity. I usually don’t talk so harshly of a film but it just seems so over rated. It is badly shot with hundreds of digital cameras. Maybe I’ll watch another one of his films after I’ve gotten over how bad this one was. The one thing I did like about it was Bjork and her music.
@Tom C
That’s how I felt after “Dogville” too. I don’t really have much desire to see any newer Von Trier works, but I may try his early works. “The Kingdom” is quite fun though. It’s neither bleak on purpose, nor gimmicky. Von Trier must have repressed these impulses in order to crank out a schlocky but brilliant TV series.
Yo Justin, “Matthew, on a drear-o-meter, you rate Dancer as more chipper than Breaking the Waves? What kind of curve are you using?”
I’m thinking of he overall feeling , the sound, the look, in Dancer in the Dark, the more devastating film for me, but the musical scenes presented a transcendence from the overall presented hell….which seemed like a constant flow in Breaking the Waves. But this was the feeling i got, more then what happens in the films.
Yves, what do you see as flawed in Dancer? Breaking the boundaries of probability….good observation. I felt that way, but then I thought, well it happens, people don’t always do the “right” things…“bad” things are unavoidable, but we can look out for each other to aid in those moments, I think this film reminds us to do that.
Well I just find it so unlikely that that during the court cases they never figure out that the police officer (not sure of his name) hadn’t paid any of taxes for quite some time and also that Bjork’s son could get a surgery under a fake name with no type of identification. Because if he did have any sort of identification then they would know that was the “Stolen” money and would take it back. Also Bjork’s persistence in not telling the court certain things just because it was a secret just seemed so unlikely to me it may be possible but it seemed outrageously improbable. I see what your saying Matthew but often times in a film I will get stuck on one certain thing and that one certain thing can make me hate a film and for me it was much of what happened right before the court scene and thereafter.
Matthew, I can see the logic there, though Peter Stormare is no Gene Kelly. The glam rock theme in Waves served a similar, less developed function — why was all the music Bess listened to from 1972, anyway?
I’d start off with Dogville than Manderlay, both great films.
I’d start with his earliest film, The Element of Crime. It is a very atmospheric and underrated psychological thriller. Then watch Europa and Breaking the Waves especially the latter to appreciate his exceptional directing skills. Idioterne and Five Obstructions are interesting in their own way. Dancer in the dark and Dogville are ok but they can be a bit annoying if you don’t fall for his obvious and sometimes laughably simplistic attempts at emotional manipulation – an aspect that is present in many of his films including Breaking the Waves.
I haven’t seen his last 3 films though…
I was checking Von trier’s IMDB credits and he was making films since he was 10 years old. He has like 6 or 7 films before his first feature The element of crime. My personal favorite is Breaking the waves.
You are right, Mikel. I think The Element of Crime was his first full-length film that got widely distributed.
I also forgot The Kingdom. The first series is wickedly delicious and I don’t agree with Brendon – you don’t have to wait until you become a fan of LvT to see it. Some may become more interested in seeing his other films based on it…
I’ve really changed a lot in my attitude toward von Trier in the past few months, during which I’ve gotten around to watching Dogville, Manderlay, and The Boss of It All and found them all very enjoyable and successful. Formerly, I had found Element of Crime and Epidemic to be a little slight — more like filmed treatments rather than actual films — and Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the Dark to be dour exercises that ranged from great to unappealing. I suppose, if I was going to stick with this frame, I’d say that I think von Trier has developed from something pseudo-good to something great. But I’m so happy with his recent work that I want to revisit his early films with an eye toward liking them better. And I’ve always wanted to see The Idiots — something about the descriptions I’ve read have led me to think that film would be right up my alley.
dancer in the dark first – EDIT if you like Bjork and her music!
then dogville/manderlay
Alot o' marQ
i’m coming out and saying it-I have never seen a film by Lars Von Trier! i know, right? whats wrong with this guy? Manderlay is in my Netflix queue, but i’m curious what his fan’s think. Where should i start? Where should i go from there? what will someone that has never seen his films think of them, and where is the best place to start watching? i’m pretty open to styles and subjects i’ve never seen before, so don’t say, “well this one movie is his most mainstream and easiest to digest…” unless you really think someone NEEDS to start at his easy work and move up. if you think i should fly headfirst into his movies, and say fuck-all to what’s easy to watch, then do that. gimme a primer on Von Trier, if you would be so kind.