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| An interesting, weird poster for Lars Von Trier's The Element of Crime |
QUICK REVIEW:
A police detective returns to Europe after 13 years in Cairo to investigate a bestial serial killer case. His search, however, turns into an obsessive examination of the suspect Harry Gray.
The Element of Crime is the feature debut of Danish master co-writer-director Lars Von Trier (Breaking the Waves (1996)), written with Niels Vørsel (Europa (1991), co-writer).
The film marks a fascinating and unique highlight for artistic freedom and determination to experiment within Danish film and is visually stunningly beautiful. The plot is too intangible to ever produce any kind of real suspense, and that seems to me the film's loss. - It is pretentious, to some degree, and super-airy. But also artistic, poetic, with magical, fascinating sequences - SPOILER full of dead animals, - and with a final shot of a lemur, also completely unique. It opens up the Europe-trilogy's main theme of a diseased continent in disintegration, following the destruction of 'the great' wars.
The Element of Crime is, due to its deeply committed strangeness, especially a film for cinephiles and Von Trier fans.
Related reviews:
Lars Von Trier: Nymphomaniac (2013) short version, vol. 1 & vol. 2, or, Lars Von Trier's Suck It Melancholia (2011) - Von Trier's heightened reality doomsday reflections
Antichrist (2009) - Von Trier's cabin-in-the-woods psycho-horror
The Boss of It All/Direktøren for det Hele (2006) - Von Trier's hilarious absurd comedy
Dear Wendy (2005) - Vinterberg and Von Trier's unpopular, gun-themed megaflop (writer)
Dogville (2003) - Von Trier's implacable, truly unique drama
Top 10: The best big flop movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
Dancer in the Dark (2000) or, Selma the Immigrant
Watch a clip of the film with audio from Werner Herzog's Heart of Glass for some reason applied to it here, (the best Youtube can offer presently)
Cost: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Unknown (probably a big to huge flop)
[The Element of Crime was released May 14 (Denmark) and runs 103 minutes. It is the first of Von Trier's Europa trilogy, which deals with idealists of different kinds and also comprises Epidemic (1987) and Europa (1991). The sepia-like tone of the film comes from its being filmed almost entirely in sodium light. The film is heavily inspired by the films and style of Russian master filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky. 37,743 paid admission to see the film in its native Denmark, which should be regarded as pretty impressive for a debut film as weird as The Element of Crime. The film was released in at least 7 countries up until 1990. - Without financial numbers released, it is impossible to say if it turned profitable, although it looks like a big to huge flop. The film won both the Danish Robert and Bodil awards for Best Danish Film of the Year as well as the Technical Grand Prize in Cannes and several other awards. The Element of Crime is fresh at 77 % with a 6.3 critical average on Rotten Tomatoes.]
What do you think of The Element of Crime?
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