János Herskó

This early triumph by Lars von Trier, which won no less than three prizes at Cannes, is one of his most bizarre yet accessible works: a feverish retooling of film noir, an unhinged thriller, and a visually mind-blowing odyssey into a nightmare of our past.

A fascination with the extreme is written across all of Lars von Trier’s works, beginning with this mesmeric investigation of criminal minds. Captured in burnt sepia tones expressive of photographic fragments or uncertain memories, the ashen film is also evocative of a changing—crumbling?—Europe.