A mad old man shoots from a window, trying to get into an unknown enemy, after some time the hero repeats his action with the accuracy of the frame. Cyclicality, or rather obsession, are the fundamental attributes of surreal cinema. And I, as if penetrating into this Europe, experiencing a sense of the strongest déjà vu, realize that 2 years ago, during the first viewing, I experienced exactly the same emotions as now. It was as if the film had penetrated me, was able to immerse itself in this viscous viscous atmosphere and illustrate on me all the magic that this film exudes. I again feel the inner discomfort, the uncomfortableness of the room, rearrange things again, trying to create a comfortable atmosphere and again a feeling of dissatisfaction with the result. With this crushing feeling of inferiority, incompleteness, obsession with order, I watch the film, it starts to tire me, I look at the clock, with each minute more and more immersed in this half-sleeping state, trying to understand what is wrong with this seemingly perfect film.
It looks gorgeous, all this deconstruction of the purely American noir genre looks like a very sinophile look of a person who at the same time seems to mock all this deliberate seriousness, at the same time, without departing from it a single step. I was always amazed at Trier by his unique sense of humour, because it's never clear whether he's joking or not. Sex with a car, or rather with a girl on it, is just a beautiful scene, a misunderstood episode, or a mockery of a typical female character in a movie that serves simply as a thing to satisfy male needs. Dead horses – homage or mockery of Tarkovsky, just another shocking attack? What lies behind this whole film, trying to recreate the genre through the prism of the author’s vision, trying to copy another director, practicing with the camera and creating an atmosphere without trying to put meaning into it, no one will ever know. The general mood of the film is another mystery of the great director. But the most amazing thing about all this is that you want to dig and analyze it. For example, what does water mean in a movie? Together with the hero, we travel through scraps of memory, or it is already a tunnel in purgatory, or even in hell. Dreams, reality, hypnosis, self-determination, the inner self and the struggle with oneself, the number of interpretations is simply amazing. But at the same time, I can’t dwell on any of them, I feel like two years ago, a very stupid person who feels like a movie connoisseur not for everyone, but after almost every film, Trier is lost in guessing what is wrong here, why I don’t understand the end, whether there is a deep background, or everything is too obvious. The endless confusion, the feeling of not being comfortable - all this is felt not only in the atmosphere, but in the aftertaste itself. You realize how little you know about everything in the world when, even after almost 2,000 movies, you can’t fully understand the ending of the movie with those diving and the identity of the maniac. But still, a little walking and thinking about what I saw, I came to the next.
If we move away from the concept of just beautiful surrealism, and dig a little deeper, we see a very banal and stupid criticism of Europe with its “rotting” values, but it seems to me that this is not just about them. To a large extent, it is a film about laziness, about the unwillingness to change. Man is a creature that, like any other animal, adapts to any circumstances. And perhaps the water here is a stumbling block in the global sense, which demonstrates the degradation of humanity, unable to change anything and unwilling to do so. Succumb to the elements, so that nature again becomes the ruler of the Earth. As in Strugatsky’s story Worry, when people just lie in their beds and sleep while their city goes under water. The people in the Element of Crime are only parasites living on the achievements of previous generations, before us the true decline of civilization. In one scene it was said that this very element of crime is not in society, but in man. And yes, it is with one person who cannot cope with himself that the collapse of man begins, the collapse of everything. We are people who have reached the top of technology, capable of flying into space, surrendered to the onslaught of our own laziness, where, like the same Strugatskys, the consumption and search for selfish happiness for themselves alone contributed to the decomposition of the very essence of life. We see in the film a hyperbolized and terrible end of the world. It all seems like a nightmare, but in Cairo, as we understand it is impossible to return, we are forever stuck in Europe.
It is interesting that Cairo I associate with Lovecraft, whose humanity was also on the verge of death.
P. P.S. And about the jump -- I think it's a symbolic approach to that very end, it's just a little bit short of being completely submerged in that alluring water. A little. . .
For the modern world of cinema, the name of the Danish director Lars von Trier is a cult, and his directorial handwriting is recognizable by avid film lovers. The handheld camera, the effect of documentary filming, maximum frankness, confrontational exploration of existential, social and political issues are all integral parts of every film in the career of this director. But like any director, Lars von Trier also had his debut, with which he entered the world of cinema. And this debut was the detective thriller “The Element of Crime”.
In Europe, a series of brutal murders of little girls selling lottery tickets takes place. The police are forced to seek help from British detective Fisher, who came directly from Cairo, where he settled several years ago. Upon his return, he immediately consults his teacher Osborne, the founder of the “crime element,” a controversial technique that allows him to immerse himself in the mind of a criminal, unravel his motives and, accordingly, reveal his identity. Fisher, trying to unravel who is behind the murders, involuntarily begins to get used to the maniac’s skin.
It is worth noting that von Trier’s debut work in terms of prescribed characters was not as bright as his subsequent films. Most of the characters resemble familiar patterns of characters. Thus, the English actor Michael Elphick played the role of Fisher, who embodied the classic image of a detective who first tries to find a criminal, and eventually begins to engage in an existential search for himself. Or the Burmese actress Mi Mi Lai, who played the role of a prostitute Kim, embodied a typical image of a femme fatale, behind which lies the solution of crimes. It is not necessary to single out someone specific, since the main roles were mentioned above, and the rest of the characters performed only auxiliary functions for the plot, especially without showing their hero.
In genre terms, “The Element of Crime” combines a detective thriller and neonoir. At the same time, the film itself is made in such a way that it seems as if everything is happening in some dream or parallel reality. The real story is superimposed on an unreal world where some places, objects or people take on metaphorical forms. The archive is in a flooded room, the heroes constantly sleep on some grass, then on some nails and screws, the journey through consciousness takes the form of a trip through an underground tunnel. And everywhere water pours or drips. Due to all this, the film simultaneously intoxicates and introduces into a kind of trance. At the same time, the overall dynamics of the film are a little annoying with its slowness and constant lyrical digressions.
The plot of the film is a separate big question, because for the most part, even after watching the film, you can hardly understand what exactly you just saw. The action takes place in a country called Europe, which recently swept the wave of serial murders of little girls. What they all have in common is that the dead sold lottery tickets. The police rushed in guesses and summoned from Cairo British detective Fisher, who settled there. Fisher is a follower of his teacher Osborne, who, in turn, once developed the questionable technique for searching for serial killers "The Crime Element." Fisher, following this method, plunges into the consciousness of the criminal, which really allows him to advance in the case. However, this technique has its side effects, consisting in the fact that Fisher begins not only to think like a maniac, but also to behave. Therefore, there is a dilemma here. But isn’t he really a maniac?
The Element of Crime is a very strange and unusual movie. On the one hand, the film pretends to be an action-packed detective thriller about a cruel maniac who kills little girls, but, on the other hand, the Element of Crime is a classic arthouse, which this combination of American visionary and European metaphysics introduces into some cognitive dissonance, not giving the result to understand what he saw.
While I don’t aim to be a film critic in my reviews, two people in this field have influenced my writing style. Roger Ebert, who was uncompromising with the films and could highly praise or tax the film. And Anton Dolin, who in reviews tries to write easier and more democratic attitude to films. And it just so happened that some of my dark side encouraged me to encroach on something dear to them in terms of cinema. And since I am too lazy to get to Roger Ebert’s favorite films (but this does not mean that I will not consider them!), today the Holy Grail of Anton Dolin will fall under the distribution.
I will immediately say that I planned to get acquainted with the work of this native of Denmark not with Dogville, which everyone appreciated, and not from the last film, when everyone was fighting in a shock fit. No, no, no, if von Trier is really such a genius, it would be better to go back to the beginning and see where he started. This film became Lars’ pass to the world of full-length cinema and was immediately noted at Cannes.
Having shot a number of short films, von Trier still decided to release a large film. And the ambition of the young Dane was present - "The element of crime" was to be part of a series of films on the general theme of crimes in Europe. I was trying to create my own movie universe before Marvel made it popular. This film tells the story of investigator Fisher, who is called to investigate the serial murders of girls taking place in Europe. Fisher uses a technique prescribed by one of his mentors named Osborne to investigate. The basis of this method is psychological identification with a maniac. That’s just immersed deeper in the course of the investigation, the detective loses touch with reality and no longer distinguishes where the detective ends, and the maniac begins.
Dark atmosphere, nefarious translation and just a shaking camera – all these technical disadvantages can be removed due to the replica “first pancake lump”. And to be honest, the style of shooting in orange-red shades came to me. The story is told from the perspective of the hypnotized Fisher, who indulges in memories, so some artistic details have a certain symbolism. Dirty, dark alleyways showcase Europe's unhealthy atmosphere. And the huge amount of running water for me means an overabundance of information. Seriously, this is the movie where I spent an hour straining my brain to somehow get into it. And judging by the fact that I have discouraged the desire to review, the arguments “cinema is not for everyone” do not work.
Of course, technically, the chips look spectacular, you can even draw an analogy in some manner with Tarkovsky, who Trier is one of his favorite directors. But for me, this film is frankly merged in terms of viewability. Compounded, created in some torment. And not only I think so, at the premiere of the film in Cannes regularly heard the sound of clapping chairs. According to Lars, there were thirty people left in the room by the end of the film. However, what has been done is done, and now Denmark can shine as a film provocateur, who still causes conflicting emotions.
While I don’t aim to be a film critic in my posts about the film, two people in this field have influenced my writing style. Roger Ebert, who was uncompromising with the films and could highly praise or tax the film. And Anton Dolin, who in reviews tries to write easier and more democratic attitude to films. And it just so happened that some of my dark side encouraged me to encroach on something dear to them in terms of cinema. And since I am too lazy to get to Roger Ebert’s favorite films (but this does not mean that I will not consider them!), today the Holy Grail of Anton Dolin will fall under the distribution.
I will immediately say that I planned to get acquainted with the work of this native of Denmark not with Dogville, which everyone really appreciated, and not from the last film, when everyone was fighting in a shock fit. No, no, no, if von Trier is really such a genius, it would be better to go back to the beginning and see where he started. This film became Lars' pass to the world of full-length cinema and was immediately noted at Cannes.
Having shot a number of short films, von Trier still decided to release a large film. And the ambition of the young Dane was present - "Element of crime" was to be part of a series of films on the general theme of crimes in Europe. Something like 'I tried to create his own movie universe before Marvel made it popular'. This film tells the story of investigator Fisher, who is called to investigate the serial murders of girls taking place in Europe. Fisher uses a technique prescribed by one of his mentors named Osborne to investigate. The basis of this method is psychological identification with a maniac. That’s just immersed in the course of the investigation, the detective loses touch with reality and no longer distinguishes where the detective ends, and the maniac begins.
Dark atmosphere, nefarious translation and just a shaking camera - all these technical disadvantages can be removed due to the replica "first pancake lump". And to be honest, the style of shooting in orange-red shades came to me. The story is told from the perspective of the hypnotized Fisher, who indulges in memories, so some artistic details have a certain symbolism. Dirty, dark alleyways showcase Europe's unhealthy atmosphere. And the huge amount of running water for me means an overabundance of information. Seriously, this is the movie where I spent an hour straining my brain to somehow get into it. And judging by the fact that I have discouraged the desire to review, the arguments “cinema is not for everyone” do not work.
Of course, technically, the chips look spectacular, you can even draw an analogy in some manner with Tarkovsky, who Trier is one of his favorite directors. But for me, this film is frankly merged in terms of viewability. Compounded, created in some torment. And not only I think so, at the premiere of the film in Cannes regularly heard the sound of clapping chairs. According to Lars, there were thirty people left in the room by the end of the film. However, what has been done is done, and now Denmark can shine as a film provocateur, who still causes conflicting emotions.
The first big or debut feature-length film by Lars von Trier and frontally turned the director to the same Europe, and lit up inside the festival movement. Success, primarily linguistic, since a special blow fell on the part of the visual and atmospheric, the usual narrative in the Element of Crime is almost absent, only formally adhering to the chosen plot line.
Everything else is decided by openly metaphysical and far from understanding, but close to sensation. The trembling subconscious, working for abstract motives, has a visionary basis. Hypnosis, passing a bold line through the trilogy "E" (not the most grounded in my opinion of all Trier trilogies), thoroughly blurs the facets of the reality in which the story unfolds. That's just von Trier in this case does not speak, but draws - abstract art is expressed in dark yellow, echoing black, colors, some acid rust, and through all this, answers to subconscious questions are displayed like a pulse through broken windows.
Very successfully in this topic, the detective canvas, investigators and serial killers are taken, which sets the subconscious in motion and which can most clearly express the degeneration of one personality into another, the self-capture of another person. The unconditional European neo-noir, tested by Trier, allows you to conduct a dialogue between the hero and the viewer, justifying yourself and trying to expose yourself. At the same time, he cannot speak clearly and naturally, his consciousness was divided into pictures and symbols, which the director subsequently operates, trying to pass the story off as a visual puzzle.
Bathing "Europe" in mud baths here seems frustrated in comparison with the same "Epidemic", where the mainland or Trier's limited community falls apart significantly and more revealing. The problem, of course, is the person who walks on the ruins already created, while no matter how much the director tries to show the impact of these ruins on the person, he does not exist as such - the hero splits regardless of the canvas in front of him, behind him, under his feet and in the distance, where the movement of his mental fears is directed. At the same time, the main issue highlighted in the name of the tape - "the element of crime" is solved. Without which it is impossible to commit a criminal act, is it the motive or the tool? The answer lies in the very human subconscious, where the habitual canvas acquires a different color, a different destroyed reality, and rather itself affects the disintegration of the territory of life into the territory of sin.
At least Trier is not a manipulator or an element of destruction. So far, these are sharp equivocas in the direction of film art with its familiar structure and the area of the intangible / imagined. A kind of claustrophobic concert for a person with the usual division into bad and good. Just someone in the middle somewhere. Unsaid.
The first feature-length film by 28-year-old director Trier. You can relate to this author in different ways - his films can be madly liked, you may be sick of them, you may disdain them or even hate them, but I think it is difficult to deny that this is one of the most powerful artists of our time, maybe a "strong" wrong word, more capacious here will be the word "stylish". This film made me once again see that Trier can make very different films, but at the same time in each of them remains recognizable, as in my opinion, this is a sign of genius in cinema.
The action of the film plunges us into the hypnotic dream of police detective Fisher, we plunge with him into the abyss of memories of the path of pursuing a serial killer using the method of full identification with the criminal. The action takes place in a non-existent, post-apocaleptic European country that resembles Tarkovsky’s Zone rather than something real.
Naturally, this film is interesting primarily not content, but form. The film is shot in dirty yellow tones of sepia, it feels that the black and white film reflects the light from the fire, but not the warm and cozy fireplace, but the lifeless flame of the crematorium furnace. In the perspectives, plans, spans of the camera, the imitation of Trier’s idol, Andrei Arsenyevich, is obvious. A lot of water and glass, beautifully filmed reflections in them. You need to watch exclusively with the original soundtrack, most monologues and even dialogues occur when the characters behind the scenes and actors play only in their voice, so that a sluggish reading of Russian dubbers can completely kill the whole atmosphere.
In general, after viewing, there was a feeling that the author took the techniques of his favorite masters and classical trends such as noir and the German old school, all this mixed up, seasoning a fair share of his grotesque darkness and deliberate exaggeration and said: Look what happened! There is such a fashionable word "postmodern", I do not understand what it means, but somewhere on the back of the cerebellum I feel that this is it. If they want to shoot noir these days, I prefer it to look like this.
I liked the film, kept its atmosphere and did not let go until the end. I seriously doubt that it will appeal to many, may seem boring or even disgusting.
8 out of 10
It's been a while. I wonder what level of understanding I have now, heh, cinema. There is a director, Lars von Trier. From Denmark. He is famous and well-known, although not fondled. But once even he had the opportunity to make his debut – “The Element of Crime”. I'm going to talk about him. However, contrary to the style of speech, this is only my obsessive interpretation;
I think there are two main messages in this first film. But I want to start not with them, but with feelings. Mud. Very dirty movie. The whole film is made in a dull color of rust. Such an unpleasant, acidic scale.
The action itself, bordered by this scale, takes place in Italy. More precisely, in the Italian slums, dirty, smelly, without a chance to see at least one ray of the sun.
A detective who is subordinate to an arrogant fool investigates a string of murders of little girls, relying on the work of a mad mentor. And it's all mixed with blood and sex, slightly tainted with lottery tickets. Feel the taste? Now let’s get to why everything is done the way it is done.
1. Trier brings the classical techniques and views of cinema to the absolute, thereby destroying them. Neo-noir from black or brown colors it makes rusty yellow. He turns the idea of “thinking like a criminal” into an ideology. Hot and sunny Italy makes a place where “for three years have not seen summer”. Instead of wine, strong alcohol. Instead of showers, it's a swamp. Instead of winning, defeat.
2. A kind of allusion to the modern world. Not necessarily Italy, but just the surrounding reality. On the one hand, life is monotonous, without illumination. On the other hand, it is depressingly, hopelessly dirty. In fact, the current world is a hotbed of dirt, vices, darkness, where even in the lottery you can only win certain death. The good people in this world are forgotten or go crazy. Ordinary people survive, and devils feast on bones.
3. Man is the beginning of all beginnings – this is how it looks. There is a plus and a minus, and one is easily replaced by another. But according to Trier, the main role is a man of modern Europe, a European. And he has no choice which beginning to follow. The whole film is filled with predestination of fate. Whatever the intention, it will lead a person to hell. He will still be corrupted by his own good deeds. He doesn’t even realize it until it happens. The worst part is that you can’t survive in Europe if you stay clean. You'll get dirty, bathe in shit, break down, even go crazy. The only way to get rid of insanity is to run as far away as possible. Like Cairo. There is sun, sand, little moisture.
Symbolically, only the main character was “pure.” It’s all in white – the only bright spot in the whole film, but gradually, the clothes get dirty, although at first nothing left stains on it. It climaxes, perhaps, when he gets out of bed with a prostitute who was fucked throughout the film, and finds himself in blood (and, I believe, menstrual). Probably, at this point, the last bastion of purity breaks down and no longer flash contrasting white spots.
All the children in the film are unhappy. The wife of his crazy mentor abandoned him and left her child to fend for herself. He's sitting in a dark room in a cold blown house and nobody cares about him. All the dead are little girls. The sister of one of the dead is a tramp, afraid of everything. Children are the flowers of life, but without the sun they do not grow, nor in the mud. No children, no future. Europe doesn't have one.
Why are they all girls? On the one hand, the girl is weaker - this future is poorly seen. And they are the ones who will embody the next generation of people. Or rather, they will not incarnate, since they are all cut mentally and physically, if not killed.
Why the "element" of the crime? Because Europe itself and its life is a crime, and Trier shows only a fragment of it, one of the many elements that made the world what it really is.
It is not easy for Mr. Fisher to determine his own location. Whether he is in Egypt, or in a chair in front of a hypnotist doctor, or swims by boat to the inconspicuous house of his teacher Osborn, girdled with murky canals, in this extinct flooded city where water seems to be everywhere ... water as a transition into the unconscious, as a blanket for the restless and distinct sleep of a person who has lost the concept of good and evil.
Detective Fisher is after Harry Gray. In his work, he uses the Osborn method, according to which the detective needs to turn into a criminal for a while, following his trail, do the same thing he did at the time when the revealed atrocities occurred. Of course, such experiments with his psyche are quite risky, but Fisher seems obsessed with some higher goal - he is a professional, he needs to catch the killer, he must neutralize Harry Gray.
Relationship with a Chinese girl of easy behavior, joint work with Kramer - the immediate boss, who everywhere drags help from armed soldiers with military equipment and a helicopter; a group of extreme men preparing for a "dive" - a jump into the abyss from a construction crane with rope-bound legs, law enforcement officers who intend to stop the fun of troublemakers ... A fire that broke out somewhere below, on the banks of a large body of water, a golden black night in a dirty, wet Europe. The perfect place for another murder.
He asks you to call him that. Harry Gray is his second self, his essence, his nature. Through the dark, watery space, one has to grope to the very core of evil, striving for ultimate self-knowledge. The world is mired in violence and debauchery, insanity and poverty, evidence of its complete decay at every turn, and so all that remains for Fisher is to try to catch at least this maniac who kills little girls selling lottery tickets. And, to his credit, Mr. Fisher is working tirelessly, he is dedicated, and new details are revealed to him. At the same time, breaking migraines, mental anguish, insatiable Chinese Kim - at the decisive moment, there are too many obstacles. But Mr. Fisher is closer to Harry Gray than ever, the bizarre murder map is almost complete.
For the structure of the Element of Crime, there are several prerequisites, psychological axioms. A general decline, expressed by a blazing garbage dump stretching for hundreds of meters along the river; the acceptance of evil in the world and the fact that its roots lie within man, that is, the initial feeling of guilt - in the case of Detective Fisher, which led to the flight from Cairo and found on arrival an even more eerie picture of murder in an alien, damp, water-washed Europe. Trying to understand the nature of evil while remaining an honest cop; turning into a maniac, following Osborn's instructions. Such depressive moral attitudes determine the general background and genre of this film, an existential thriller, trip-hop cinema in dirty black tones. Author's wit, virtuoso long plans, rare warm shades, contrasting with the general dull color scheme and thereby adding volume to the remotely surreal visual range.
Putting oneself in the place of the “criminal element”, the search for such an element in the individuality and not in the social masses, circumstances that in themselves absolutely mean nothing, the ability to accept responsibility, the prospect of becoming a victim in the name of someone’s salvation – these noble dogmas, inherent in the further work of the director, are touched with more or less detail in this seemingly gloomy, but internally to cynicism, hopeless journey to the abys of human sinfulness.
Life is beautiful at all times, but only when it is full of meaning and warmth. And if a person does not have any of this, then this existence brings him in common with a patient affected by gangrene. Amputation is salvation, and death is complete deliverance. But death is different, the martyr will be released only with a sharp knife or a bullet. Such an ending, happy in its own way, may be of interest to anyone but Lars von Trier. The Danish misanthrope from cinema like no one likes to send his characters to a torture chamber, from which you can not get out alive. One day he will destroy an entire planet. Since its population has no need to live, it is better to surrender to the magnificence of death. And the origins of aesthetic cynicism are not in the accumulated fatigue of the director and his tendency to depression. For von Trier and in the early years of creativity, a quiet life was not of interest. It is quite another matter when in an unknown corner of Europe there is complete anarchy, growing chaos and widespread desolation. People are brought together only by general decline, they have become unaccustomed to the light, have come to terms with the stinking smell of death and crave only one thing - destruction. The inevitable death is blessed for them, but the saving moment does not come, and therefore the torture will continue.
It is no accident that the gatekeeper of the Trierian underworld bears the name Fisher. He does catch fish, but not alive, but dead. For this process, you do not need a fishing rod or nets, the prey itself floats upside down. Policeman Fisher has a lot of trouble, but a target named Harry Gray is not yet available. The clever detective has been absent for a long time, he is weaned from the routine process. In his memory there are almost no relatives left, and even the former teacher Osborne is now just an old man falling into senility. Sinking in reddish dusk, the city is marked by a series of murders of girls selling lottery tickets. The old case was early in the archive, and to get on the trail of the killer can only merge with him in one person. This unusual method of investigation is described in detail in Osborne’s book, which became the only reliable partner of the “fisherman”. The pessimistic cynic, who is not tolerated by everyone, and the chief of police in the first place, becomes the new exponent of the theory of destruction.
With manic tenacity, the director avoids naming a country choking in blood, dirt and muddy waters. Lars von Trier had an infernal version of Amsterdam or Venice, where the canals burst out of their banks, carrying the mortal civilization to the bottom. Here and there inappropriately bravura exclamations sound mocking refrain: “We are Europeans!” Yes, it is the European director who sees no sense in any geographical fragmentation if everyone is globally affected by the same virus of mental decay. In the picture of the Danish philosopher of death there is absolutely no evidence of the development of progress, even a brave detective moves on a mutilated Beetle. Widespread chaos crumbling the remnants of a once glorious human civilization with frightening inevitability. There is no natural light, people do not really sleep, all around is the dim light of dirty lanterns and an unprecedented feast of death. It spares no one, the proud horses drowning in the sewage symbolize the lowest point of European decline. It simply can not be worse, metaphysical collapse is comparable only to moral - whose personification is Detective Fisher, who identifies himself with the killer Gray.
There is at least one important difference between the early von Trier and himself today. The film “The Element of Crime” clearly reads traces of directorial respect for the works of Rob-Grille and Lang. Structured hell fire still keeps in its stuffy bowels timid remnants of hope. Glasses are broken with a rumble, satanized heroes shoot somewhere in the sky - no one wants to put up with the idea of the inevitability of death. Especially such a painful, long, rusty claws tearing the mind to pieces. Maniac Harry Gray, who despised absolutely all norms of morality, disfiguring already dead maiden bodies, concentrates European evil, which has gained critical mass. Von Trier arranged a terrible trial much earlier than people were ready for it, and therefore the Dane chose a dull yellow-red palette for his painting. These are the colors of the cleansing flames that are about to burn over Europe, which is going under water. Fischer’s investigation, his attempts to identify himself with the murderer, are the ordeal of von Trier himself, who does not separate himself from the on-screen orgy of his own invention. The white detective suit he brought back from Cairo was the last beacon of purity for the doomed world. Fisher does not disdain to mess around in garbage heaps in his outfit, so he will find catharsis before the rest.
Rebuses of the Element of Crime only at first glance seem insoluble, and in reality von Trier does not abuse mystification. The remark of the police chief reflects the director’s essence so clearly that no further explanation is required. I grabbed the world by the balls, once and for all. In these words, the whole of von Trier, as he is, for which some idolize him, and others are ready to mix him with his own shit. The debut feature film convincingly proved the validity of the statement that the world was simply not ready for the triumph of misanthropy of Scandinavian production. The prize of the Cannes Film Festival for technical means was the result of the European surrender. The competent jury in the eighties had nothing to answer the fair portrayal of Europe as a breeding ground of dirt, vice and uncleanness. Fisher's "fishing" - von Trier brought a good catch, but the thirst for destruction is not satisfied with nominations and prizes, it requires a new application. This virtuoso of cinematic cynicism was engaged in the next thirty years, and the beginning degenerated from a quite ordinary book on forensics with a concise title “The Element of Crime”.
You will see Europe again for the first time in 13 years.
At one time, Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky, after watching this film, expressed his own brief assessment: “Very weak!” In the wake of Tarkovsky, critics from around the world have picked up. They almost accused the film of meaninglessness. A la: “Empty film, beautiful but meaningless.” However, "The Element of Crime" is far from as empty as it seems.
Looking at the so-called “Dive” (the ritual of bald sectarians in the film), a scene from the notorious “Melancholy” of the same Trier comes to mind. In the scene, a yarn on Justin's feet (Kirsten Dunst) prevents her from walking. In turn, in the "Element" such an obstacle in the form of yarn are cables on the legs of jumping people. They symbolize death, and do not allow a person to touch the water in full measure. Water here symbolizes life (an obvious reference to Tarkovsky). And falling into the water, injuring himself with a rope, a person feels life with bitterness on his face. Here, you can see the symbolism of the Fallen Angels, since the high-altitude crane (from where the jump was made) could well be a symbol of heaven.
In "Element" very noticeable influence on Trier creativity Tarkovsky. From obvious visual allusions to "Stalker" and "Andrey Rublev", to not immediately understandable dialogues (and even monologues), which are presented to the viewer as encryption. It is worth noting that the film is the first part of the so-called “Trilogy E”, where in all three films the most important elements will be hypnosis. Hypnosis, as a rule, acts as a “stick in the wheel” of the idea of the main character. This is to challenge what is happening on the screen. Trier masterfully gives a model of the film, trying to fool the viewer that the action is real. In fact, the element of crime is only a fiction.
The film can be compared to Abell Ferrara’s Bad Lieutenant. A cruel and nameless hero, which is in the soul of everyone. Just like Detective Fisher, a tossing, self-digging rebellious soul. The soul seeks answers to the eternal question “Why?” The doctor who forced Fisher into hypnosis symbolizes God. God can tell you, but he won’t tell you the right way. Man must find the way himself. To sum up: The Crime Element is not just a visually beautiful sepia-style detective. This is a complex scheme of the psychological state of a person. In the finale, Fisher utters the phrase (to the doctor): "Are you here?" He doesn't hear the answer... Does God hear us?
The debut film of Lars von Trier and the first in the trilogy “Europe”. The film itself is a work of art. It has an icy aesthetic of degeneration, of decline. Europe is drowning in its own wastewater, eternal night and mud. The film goes into a trance, focusing on your subconscious. He's hypnotizing. In the postmodern style leaves an indelible impression. It’s like a dream that will haunt your thoughts for a long time. Not the picture, but the perception of the picture. Sleep is fuzzy and rusty. So you want to quickly get rid of it, brushing off your hand, but you can’t. It is very difficult to wake up when you are in a terrible dream.
Dark and filled with mystical, sometimes even mythological, details. For the first time in decades, a Danish film has been selected for competition in Cannes. It was a breakthrough not only for Danish cinema, but for European cinema as a whole. In the early eighties, the word aesthetics was used with extreme caution. Many believed that it is impossible to perceive a thing only from this side, forgetting about the content. Again, remembering where the Nazis came from. Knowing Lars’ concern for the Nazis, the public was wary of this film. But the younger generation saw themselves in him, they saw all the fears that tormented them. And to this day, the film can be seen without any awkwardness or misunderstanding.
This provocateur, of course, could not fail to appear in his film, albeit in a small episode. But what did he look like? With a mockingly snide smile, on suspenders and absolutely bald. And it's all natural. He is a part of the film and the film is a part of it.
The film was certainly groundbreaking, and its author was finally noticed. And this apocalyptic aesthetic of the film will be traced for a long time in the subsequent works of the 28-year-old genius. “It is very important that everything that exists is described,” the young director tells us, adding: “Even an aesthetic description of the end of the world cannot be hidden, because it is thought out, done, it exists, and everything that exists must be shown.”
I just want to make a small reservation. I am not a fan of Trier and I do not consider him a genius of modern cinema. But most of his films, I like them. I like the atmosphere it creates: an atmosphere filled with despair, human cruelty, melancholy. But while watching his films, the feeling that on the other side of the screen, an already old Dane is watching you and the evil smiles, as if to say: “What if I make the picture even darker, scarier, suffocating?” But the film The Crime Element (which is the initial in the trilogy) was directed by a twenty-eight-year-old director, and it is impossible to call it old. I wonder who will be watching me this time.
The crime element turned out to be somewhat different from Trier’s previous work. The first thing that catches the eye is color reproduction. We meet rusty Europe. We meet her in dilapidated streets, in dilapidated apartments, in the squalor of the lives and existence of characters brewed in a cauldron called Europe. But we must not forget that we are in the head of a policeman under hypnosis. And it's his memories and his vision of that part of the world. Fisher returns from Cairo to investigate a serial murder case. He shakes off the sand from his pants, left somewhere far away, and plunges into the whirlpool of the investigation. But here in Europe, water is everywhere. Water gets in the way, water becomes an obstacle. To get to an old friend, the hero has to swim in a boat. The archive (memories) is filled with water and there is almost no text left on the sheets. In Cairo, he had a wife and a firmament under his feet, and here there is little firmament and all that remains is to follow the criminal Gray. To catch him, Fisher associates himself with him, tries to live his life, tries to think, acts like him. Well, where this obsession can lead, I think many imagine. The end is sad, but natural.
And what do we get at the end when the screen says "Director: Lars von Trier"? And we get a very high-quality author's film, and considering that this debut I want to applaud. Atmosphere, heroes, dialogues - everything immerses you in Trier Europe. The plot here is secondary (and the detective line, although present, does not play a decisive role), the scene is important. A Europe that guts you, strips you of your identity and leaves one, forgotten and powerless, to keep fighting. Maybe not all is lost. Maybe just an animal trapped will one day be able to get out of the trap? Let's hope. Why, for Trier, is Europe so dark, so heavy, so vicious, I don't know. I don’t need to know that to see this movie.
And at the end, I would like to note that the screen was watched by the same elderly Dane with a cynical smile. Next on the line "Epidemic", the second film of the trilogy.
The detective part is slightly weaker than the visual part, for which I slightly lower my grade. But it's one of the most stylish films I've ever seen. Original
It is not always a postmodern work that you want to call art, as well as a picture & #39; it is difficult to count the assembled puzzle, even if it hangs on the wall in a beautiful frame. Lars von Trier is, of course, a postmodernist, but from the mass of colleagues he is distinguished by a stunning aesthetic flair and a subtle, sometimes on the very edge of perception, gloomy sense of humor. These two personal qualities are a hammer and an anvil, with the help of which the director forges his film.
Trier is perhaps the most famous and at the same time one of the most subtle provocateurs in modern cinema. I think he was known as an intellectual director not for his own intellect, but for straining the viewer’s brains. Moreover, he may be smart, but certainly not a thinker. If you watch his movies the way we used to watch movies, it’s easy to accept Trier, who is constantly saying general things, as a kind of Captain Obvious from cinema. However, his works, being filled with a variety of characters, are not at all about people. For serious faces, pathetic words and amazing scenery (if we talk about the early and late periods of his work), for deliberately careless editing, shaking camera and noisy picture (in his work as part of the manifesto of Dogma-95) – behind all this invariably glares the charming Cheshire grin of the director ... and in some places his famous tattoo on the fingers of his right hand. Trier makes a movie about perception, about attitude, about point of view. Finally, about the movie.
Perhaps Trier’s first full-length film, The Crime Element, demonstrates the above in the most transparent manner possible. The plot is banal and, in general, completely irrelevant. Crime, punishment, obsession, the fine line between normality and insanity is terribly boring for the director, and it is about this mortal boredom that he makes the film. The visual component – this dim light, these reflections, obsessive symbolism – does not emphasize, as it usually happens, the psychological state of the hero, but completely crosses it out. The viewer, following the director, does not care about Mr. Fisher, his wife left in Cairo and his migraines – we are fascinated by the chiaroscuro, listen to the noise of the incessant rain and sympathize more with the innocently killed horse than the minor victims of the maniac.
This is Trier’s first crime against classical cinema.
The second (and, at first glance, the main) semantic layer of the film is the rotting of Europe, which, flooded with continuous rains, has not seen the sun for many years. Europe is illuminated exclusively by street lamps and table lamps, and is populated by madmen, perverts and careerists. In comparison, the distant Cairo, where, by the way, the main character left as soon as there was a threat to be covered with sand, seems a real paradise. But if you do not immerse yourself in the atmosphere, but look at the details, you can see that the topic of the collapse of society is nothing more than a mockery of genre cinema. When the main character speaks almost directly behind the scenes about the abominations of Europe, and the concentration in the frame of the unpleasant, illogical and sick simply goes off the scale, we can either run in horror to rub the rope with soap, or condescendingly laugh at the deliberate, artificial gloomy of the film noird, the hypertrophied imagery of Tarkovsky’s films, the legacy of which Trier so diligently quotes, and generally whipping the atmosphere as a complex of artistic techniques.
This is Trier’s second crime against classical cinema.
He deliberately and demonstratively breaks the traditional cinema, but tells the viewer about this breakdown in the traditional film language. “Look, everything is done according to the canons, but for some reason it does not work. What's the problem? Is the director incompetent, the viewer stupid or the canon poor?
In an article about Trier, I read that there is a lot of author in The Crime Element, that he associates himself with a confused protagonist. With the first statement I agree, this film is a kind of cinematic manifesto of the director, describing his creative method, from which the evil one, in fact, did not step back, even adopting another manifesto: Dogma-95. But the fact that the director is a grievous police officer Fisher, I completely disagree. Lars von Trier is a fat psychotherapist who plunged the character into a hypnotic dream at the beginning of the film so that he told him the truth about his misadventures. It's Lars von Trier Fisher pleading at the end, "I want to wake up!" Are you there? But Trier is not there.
He left his heroes to live a miserable life in this broken movie, and the viewer to reflect on what he has just seen: a complex author’s film with philosophical overtones, another beautifully packaged consumer goods or an indistinct arthouse traction.
And for me, "The Crime Element" is valuable primarily because, completely profaning the artistic language of cinema, this film allows you to look at it from the outside and think about how, in the end, we, consumers, separate the grain from the chaff.
The first Lars Von Trier film will seem unexpected for those who are already familiar with his later works. The most dissimilar, absorbing multiple influences, is working in foreign territory. Of course, there are no dogma principles here. In this film, the director actively uses the existing film language.
Somnambulistic, largely visionary work, reproduces the aesthetics of film noir, changing the color palette from black to red, filling the film with a special expression, introducing the viewer into genuine hypnosis, trance (which is due to the plot).
The action of the film unfolds sequentially, but its beginning refers to the end of all the events of the plot. The main character agrees to undergo a hypnosis session in order to get rid of the headache caused by recent events related to the investigation of a series of brutal murders, as well as get psychological discharge. Thus, the further narrative refers to the detective's recollections of the progress of the crime investigation. He, Inspector Fisher, in his investigation uses a method of reconstructing the thoughts and behavior of the killer, which in theory allows you to better understand his motives and unravel possible actions. The author of the method, Fisher's mentor at the academy, old Osborne, believes that the latest murders do not belong to the case three years ago. Whether it is true or not, I will not say, I will only say that Osborne, the author of the methodology, will play a decisive role in this story.
In a good way, you only understand the events of the film when you watch them again. In the first part of them you do not attach importance, others by the end just forget. Although, I must admit, the plot is built quite clearly. At the same time, there are still moments in the film to which there is no direct answer. For example, the symbolism of scalpels, scissors, keys, forks and stamps on which heroes (mostly Fisher) fall from time to time is unclear. And what a strange jump on the ankle, which pops up more than once during the film, for me remained without explanation.
Europe in the film is most reminiscent of an old bedbug, which is not even an hour will plunge into the abyss of the sea with his head. Bloody palette exuded by corrosion. Shower humid air. The whole film is replaced by scenes of flooding and rain. It is no wonder that Cairo is the promised land.
As a result, we have a strong debut, in which Von Trier pays tribute to his teachers, a film not without talent and the ability to competently combine various elements.
“If you look long into the abyss, the abyss will also look into you.” – F. Nietzsche
At first glance, the plot of the film “Crime Element” seems standard for the detective genre. Somewhere in Europe, a maniac kills little girls selling lottery tickets and mutilates their bodies. On his trail is sent recently returned from Cairo detective Fisher, who uses to catch the criminal technique of his mentor Osborne, in places strongly reminiscent of the Stanislavsky system and consists in trying to put himself in the place of the killer to understand what drove him to commit the crime. But as the mask grows closer to Fisher’s face, he is unable to distinguish where he ends and the criminal begins.
The story, which could well come out of the pen of Kafka or King, falls into the hands of Lars von Trier, and this alone is enough to understand that the viewer is not waiting for an entertaining spectacle. As one critic said, this movie may not touch you, but it will get under your skin. Filmed in painful yellow, it not only tells the story of a slow descent into madness, but also chronicles the death of the West, rotting like a script written by communist propaganda. And if in Melancholia the director quickly gets rid of the whole planet, then in Element of Crime he savors every moment of decomposition of the tormented body of Europe lying in the mud like the corpse of a little lottery ticket seller.
We observe this process through the eyes of the hypnotized Fisher, who, going back in time, tells his own story of losing his mind due to the literal adherence to Osborne’s methodology. However, not only this drives him crazy – no less favorable to the progressive madness of the hero and the unhealthy atmosphere of Europe, which, like a post-apocalyptic Venice, slowly goes under the water, dissolving in dirt and sewage. It is a world in which there are always three o'clock in the morning, a world without changing seasons, without sunrises and sunsets, a world illuminated by the dim light of mud-covered lanterns, snatching from the darkness ugly, like rotten teeth, the remains of buildings. A world from which you want to escape, breaking windows and letting in fresh air. The surrounding reality turns into an endless nightmare, the captives of which can only beg an invisible hypnotist to wake them up until they decide to take their own lives.
The constant leitmotif of this nightmare is the image of horses diving into the dirty yellow water - beautiful dying animals, symbolizing strength, power and grace in the culture of Western Europe. And an inverted cart with apples thrown in the mud, personifying the fruits of knowledge, looks like a symbol of decline and refusal of enlightenment. However, all the arguments about the symbolism of the images of this film are very subjective, since the director did not give a definitive answer to the puzzles he posed. Throughout the film, Trier teases the viewer with the promise that everything will be clear now. Like a carrot hanging in front of a donkey's face, he beckons with answers to the questions posed, but in the end leaves in bewilderment, like Commissioner Fisher, who found blank pages instead of the case materials in the archive. Of course, in the finale there is a semblance of an answer and the crime is revealed, but this only raises new questions that the director prefers not to answer.
There is no certainty in the genre of the film, which turns into a noir, a thriller, a dystopia, then all together. As a result, the viewer is not sure whether the Europa depicted in the film really exists, or whether it is a figment of Fisher’s imagination, a reality that he describes through the prism of his sick consciousness.
At the same time, despite the clear predominance of the visual component over the content and some chaotic narrative, we have an independent and original creation of a man who once confidently called himself the best director in the world. Neither the critics nor the jury of the Cannes Festival could deny this. Realizing that before them something fundamentally new, but being unable to fully grasp the idea of the director, they settled on the fact that they gave the film a prize for technical achievements.
However, in addition to an unprecedented game with color, in “The Element of Crime”, the first feature-length film of von Trier and the first film from his European trilogy, you can already find techniques that later became the hallmark of the director. Among them are schematically depicted scenes of fights, the participants of which resemble puppets from the comedy del arte, scenes shot from a bird's eye view or a suffocating atmosphere of claustrophobia. Together or separately, they appear in his subsequent works, which have gained much wider fame abroad. However, if you want to know where the unique style of Lars von Trier came from, it is worth paying attention to the not promising anything good, dipping the viewer in the dirt and leaving the Element of Crime bewildering.
Lars Von Trier’s first film, the first in the E trilogy, is made in eerie, septic tones, full of Franz Kafka’s depression and Tarkovsky’s stylistics. The story of Detective Fisher, who, in order to catch the maniac Harry Gray, self-identifies with him and destroys his soul, is told in an extremely difficult for the majority manner of psychoanalysis, sewn into the structure of the neonoiric work.
In general, the film is almost plotless, but it is easy to analyze.
This is a film about cruelty, and purely European (the trilogy "E" is entirely devoted to Europe), and this is emphasized by septic filming, in which everything around is stained with blood. Bloody water, bloody light of lanterns, darkness, driving mad and a certain maniac Harry Gray, as a symbol of Europe mired in sins and sodomy.
And on the other hand, this is the noir story of policeman Fisher, who went too far in his investigation experiments and lost touch with himself.
“The element of crime” is not for everyone, but connoisseurs of deeply innovative cinema will appreciate and even love the tape.
10 out of 10