4X4: LARS VON TRIER #1: GET WET

The Good, The Pod and The Ugly

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ELEMENT

Welcome to a new year and a new director as TGTPTU’s latest 4x4 reaches its fourth of four directors: Lars Von Trier. We start with his first wide-release feature THE ELEMENT OF CRIME (1984). And so begins our wrap-up of Season 13 with water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink…

Set in a post-catastrophe Europe (as will the Dane’s next two films forming his first thematic trilogy: Europa), The Element of Crime follows the memories under hypnotism of an investigator named Fisher who employs the methodology of his now disgraced mentor, namely, the-now-clichéd-but-then-fairly-metafictionally-fresh-idea-of-following-in-a-psychopathic-criminal’s-footsteps, to enter their thinking. And so begins a degeneration and headaches and sex atop the hood of a vehicle in order to track down the Lotto Killer, a serial murderer who targets young girls who sell lotto tickets and who might be closer than Fisher realizes.

Paired with next week’s Dancer in the Dark (the final film of LVT’s second trilogy) which will utilize an entirely different cinematic language, The Element of Crime is beautifully shot as it follows Fisher throughout the flooded landscapes of Europe lit by sodium light that create a sepia tone (and, in some cases, LVT will cheat by shooting in black-and-white and colorizing). The script originally focused on three encounters Fisher has with the fascistic police chief Kramer played by Jerold Wells, a British actor perhaps best known for his work with Terry Gilliam ending with Time Bandits (Gilliam’s Brazil with its own pneumatic tube future will come out the following year), but the world was expanded as LVT and his team of two Thomas’s (cinematographer Tom Elling, and editor and possible horse murderer Tómas Gislason) found new locations such as sewers and dilapidated buildings to expand Fisher’s search as he finds himself inside the pattern to the killings.

Listen in and get the skinny on LVT’s challenge to Steven Spielberg and masturbating monkeys from Thomas; hear about Ken’s beef with a German post-punk band ruining his joke; and scream along silently with Jack in frustration about the ongoing technical issues the once-and-future provisional co-host Ryan reliably brings to being unreliable.

The host unanimously agree: a beautifully shot movie with an amazing final image. Are you there? You can wake me up now. Are you there?...

THEME SONG BY: WEIRD A.I.
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Letterboxd (follow us!):
Ken: Ken Koral
Ryan: Ryan Tobias