The House that Jack Built

I would describe The House That Jack Built as the blackest comedy I’ve ever seen. It can’t be taken seriously, though. During the viewing, emotions oscillate between ‘this Trier is such a master’ and ‘this Trier is such a ratbag’. I’ve just been slightly put off by the ending, but the rest was all fine. [Sitges 2018] (09.10.2018)

Lars Von Trier is a controversial director like David Lynch, and his previous work has so far passed me by, so I'm pleasantly surprised with his new film, which, although again not for mainstream audiences, uses an attractive theme that reminds me of the classic Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. Matt Dillon plays Jack with grace and deserves academic accolades for his performance. The film describes five incidents where Jack mercilessly murders and it definitely gives you uneasy feelings because what he does to his victims is beyond belief. The brutality is solid, but there were a few scenes where I was hoping Trier would go further, for instance the fifth incident and the full metal jacket experiment were woefully underused. It's two and a half hours long, but I didn't get bored and I enjoyed Jack's intelligent philosophising, from which I even learned something interesting, though Dante's Inferno at the end may have been too much. A disturbing, raw, smart and psychologically challenging film featuring black humour and sarcasm and I enjoyed it. 80% (26.12.2018)

Despite the violence, this is one of Trier’s most approachable films, one where the symbolism and the controversy are replaced by pragmatism and black humour, and yet I really don’t know what I’m supposed to get from it. The arthouse approach results in a stylisation of the violence, which is still quite brutally carried out, even on children, and following only the mind and thought processes of a murderous freak turns The House That Jack Built into nothing but an irritating, wannabe intellectual pose. At times it’s entertaining and the narrative concept is effective in the end, but what can I do with that when I there’s nothing that would make me enjoy the story subjectively. Maybe it’s a brilliant testimony of modern society, time will tell, but I don’t believe things are that bad in the world. Overall, I didn’t get bored, thanks to the brilliant Dillon and the many amazing ideas, but it missed me by a long shot. (16.10.2018)

Here, Trier goes beyond the limits of acceptability like never before, but once again he will (probably) get away with it thanks to his distinctive artistic framing. Or he may simply be ignored as a total burnout. To love this movie is to be like Jack. You don’t want that. And acknowledging its artistic qualities is more of a pose than an expression of knowledge and an open mind. But who knows if Jack doesn’t eventually become a modern version of Henry for this century. Paradoxically, from the distance of a few hours, I find the hunting segment, which is the most extreme part of the film, to be the most interesting for its almost cartoonish abstractness. After all, nobody can make such a thing in the mainstream with a straight face, even though it doesn’t pretend to be anything it is not. [Cannes] (16.05.2018)

Stand by Lars. A manifestation of misogyny, authorial anxiety, provocation and self-defense. A therapeutic happening, which demonstrates, using the example of a murderous human caricature, what it is like when a filmmaker finds himself in a personal cleansing and the only path leading forward is to hell. I wasn't irritated by the fact that Lars crosses the boundary and makes fun of the taboo (almost every boundary thus broken is defended and relativized by Jack himself in voice over). However, I was rather annoyed that the film did not really shake me and manipulate the traditional Trier rudeness. But the more time that passed for me since the screening, the more I have to acknowledge some form of cleansing and irresistible compulsiveness that The House That Jack Built brings. And I was laughing at the cut scenes with Speer and Hitler. This is truly beyond good and evil. I like the bloated Danish castaway there the most. BTW, don't be fooled by the attractive subtitles. The reception at Cannes was quite warm. Probably because most haters left the hall during the scene with the children. (17.05.2018)