Directed by:
Lars von TrierScreenplay:
Lars von TrierCinematography:
Manuel Alberto ClaroComposer:
Víctor ReyesCast:
Matt Dillon, Bruno Ganz, Uma Thurman, Siobhan Fallon Hogan, Sofie Gråbøl, Riley Keough, Jeremy Davies, Jack McKenzie, Mathias Hjelm, Ed Speleers (more)VOD (3)
Plots(1)
Lars von Trier's drama follows the highly intelligent Jack (Matt Dillon) over a span of 12 years and introduces the murders that define Jack's development as a serial killer. We experience the story from Jack's point of view, while he postulates each murder is an artwork in itself. As the inevitable police intervention is drawing nearer, he is taking greater and greater risks in his attempt to create the ultimate artwork. (Curzon Film World)
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Reviews (7)
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%
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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.
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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.
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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]
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He sends people to Dexter and offers them his own therapy, whereupon the audience, having paid their way in, dutifully leaves the cinema outraged. I love that bastard. Trier has cleared the bar he set in Nymph()maniac and is debating with himself the nature of art as redemption. In doing so, he struggles to come to terms with the agonizing duality of being both an artist and a pragmatic technician, which is the burr in his saddle as a director. Indeed, everything here is an offering to that auteur duality. It's bloated but apologetic. It's utterly selfish, but the film is the first to admit it. The question is how much the film works without knowing the context. Still, I was completely blown away here by the dream logic that runs through all the sequences. Everything is devoid of temporal or spatial definition; in a strangely dehumanized world, the plot shifts arbitrarily in sharp contrasts, and everything plays out at the very edge of believability. And just like the times when you lie in bed for an hour in the morning staring at the ceiling and trying to reconstruct a vivid dream that seemed meaningful to you, only when the film is over are you given the respite and space to start piecing it all together.
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