Lars von Trier: «Even my prejudices are out of fashion»

TO want to lock him up in one genre, perhaps sacrificial kitsch that’s what suits him best. But giving him too much credit would be a mistake. Lars von Trier, Danish, Protestant by birth, Catholic by conversion, a repertoire of phobias second only to his suicidal attitude (professionally speaking)inventor of a maximalist philosophy, Dogma 95 (which he then embraced in reality only in one film, Idiotswhich in fact was a joke, right from the title, of whoever bought it), he experienced altars a lot (Catherine Deneuve wrote him letters asking him to work with him) like dust (expelled from Cannes after empathic statements towards Adolf Hitler). Apparently with identical comfort. Rare.

But if we are still waiting for the last chapter of his American trilogy (after Dogville And Manderlay), there is another unexpected closing of the circle by him that will soon arrive in the cinema. Distributor Movies Inspired will bring back a large portion of the Danish filmography in a restored version, The Element of Crime, Epidemic, Europa, Breaking the Waves, Idiots, Dancer in the Dark, Dogville, Manderlay, Big Boss, Antichrist, Nymphomanic 1 and 2 and the TV series The Kingdom – The kingdom in its full version, therefore including the unedited third part presented at the last Venice Film Festival, Exodus.

Lars von Trier: “a real film is a long film”

iO Woman met the director who with The kingdomand it was 1994he demonstrated, decades before streaming made it obvious, that when the series are arthouse, they can also be made as extended films. After all, Von Trier, as a young spectator rather than as an almost seventy-year-old director, thought that «a real film is a long film, at least 3 or 4 hours».

Our meeting is via Zoom; to von Trier who has always moved little and according to pre-modern canons (the courtyard of the hotel du Cap in Cap d’Antibes, where the stars descended during the Cannes festival, traditionally housed his camper) was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease a year ago. Which, if he greatly reduces his mobility, does not prevent him from making plans for the future: «He tells me that he would like to see another film of mine?» replies the director. “I too would like to see it. Let’s make a promise then. That we’re both going to see my next film…». But the precariousness of his health does not even prevent him from seeing the positive side: «I have to find a way to exploit the shaking for using the handheld camera». Or the value of experience. «To my four children who all want to make films, I said: “Oh, please, no!”».

The Kingdom-Exodus literally starts where the second season ended, with the credits of the last episode of 1997. Karen, an old lady with psychic powers, is watching it on DVD on the TV at home. Something about her pushes her to return, as a sleepwalker, to the Rigshospitalet, the hospital that was built on the ponds of Copenhagen and where now two worlds, the ancient and the modern, are about to collide. This is at least guaranteed by the Greek choir of dishwashers who in three decades have never left the kitchens in the basement of the structure. While the welcome is paid by the nurses who at the entrance throw insults at “that idiot von Trier who has ruined the reputation of the institution”.

In the series also a #MeToo case

When did he understand that the work was not finished, then we ask Lars von Trier, and that thirty years later he had to return to that place, find many of those characters and update the question? «Back then we had written it in a hurry and shot mostly to make money, we needed them to keep us standing Zentropa (the production company he founded together with Peter Aalbæk Jensen and which produced his films and many other Danish films, ed). This time I had time to think about it. But I wasn’t interested in updating, certainly in the series there is a case that could be said to be related to #MeToo, but the problem with my sense of humor is that I’m not even avant-garde with prejudices, I’m out of fashion even in that field”.

Fans who, before the concept of binge watching was coined, the marathons of the first two seasons followed in cinemas, they will find here landscapes and leitmotifs: for example the all-Scandinavian rivalry between Danes and Swedes (and they are bordered by Volvo and Tetra Pak) which allows you to close each episode again with the beastly scream: Danske javlaror “fucking Danes” pronounced by Dr. Helmer jr., an inept doctor away from Stockholm, son of so many fathers (the legend of Swedish cinema Ernst-Hugo Järegård, who died in 1998). “Maybe there will be a war between Sweden and Denmark because of me. It will be interesting to see who sides with Russia» says the director.

The different feelings of Charlotte Gainsbourg and Bjork

Clever to many, provocateur to almost all, von Trier, the man who tried to exorcise his demons with alcohol, drugs and movies, managed to grab the headlines for years. Often getting hurt. And journalists just as often fell for it: in 2009 an English critic at the press conference for Antichriststill red in the face from what he had seen (the Cannes screening had been quite noisy) asked him to «defend and justify his film».

Charlotte Gainsbourgwho made three films with von Trier, a rarity, and which thanks to Antichrist has earned the Palmfor its part a I woman he declared that “working with Lars had been a sentimental choice”. And that the Dane belonged to the kind of directors to be trusted, because the actors «allows you to go a little further». Bjork Instead, she accused him of misogyny during the filming of Dancer in the dark. He replied – and his sincerity must be acknowledged – that «if you are capable of making emotional films you must necessarily be a manipulator».

Everything for him had started with Italian cinema, that cinema that today thanks you on the sign at the opening of Exodus (Fellini, Rossellini, Antonioni, Pasolini, Leone, Morricone…). «When I started watching films it was the golden age, immediately after neorealism, Fellini was at its peak, there was no other country with this richness. Pasolini has always been my hero, made such strange films! And I loved a lot The night porter by Liliana Cavani. I wanted Charlotte Rampling (starring with Dirk Bogarde of The night porter, ed) into Melancholia. I remember asking her how it was working with Cavani. “Impossible,” she replied. You see, I’m in good company.’

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