A Dane in Oxford
Lars Von Trier cycle at the Phoenix
It is thanks to the UK release of Lars Von Trier’s Manderlay that our beloved Phoenix is screening three of the director’s most surprising films: Dogville (2003), Dancer in the Dark (2000) and Breaking the Waves (1996). Non-conformist filming techniques and near-iconic female leads punctuate all films but each film invents its own world.
Emily Watson’s child-like facial features in BTW charm and distort to an incredible extent as she plays an apparently simple minded Scottish God-fearing newly wed who makes love “to every Tom, Dick and Harry,” thinking she is saving her injured husband who claims he lives through her sexual encounters. Her descent from an innocent church mouse to a PVC clad village bicycle is gradual and painful, but the hope that clouds her eyes makes the film irresistibly bearable.
Despite the pretentious interludes of pictures of Scotland, this film is a classic inescapable must-see lesson on all sorts of perversions of human kind. In comparison, Kidman’s performance in Dogville is less noteworthy, but the stylistic decisions made are uprooted, illustrating a parable about a gangster’s daughter hiding in a mountain town using a theatre-like set, without walls or horizon.
DD is moving and thought provoking, and Bjork’s portrayal of a devoted mother is unusual and appealing. The film has an excellent soundtrack and visually innovative colour contrasts between scenes, differentiating dreams from reality, thereby making a story of tragic injustice engaging and endurable. I suggest you rush up to Jericho on 30th April and then again on 13th and 14th May.
27th Apr 2006