The provocative Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier’s latest
film, ‘The House That Jack Built’, was released this week in the Cannes
Festival. The film, which chronicled the story of an American serial killer,
resulted in controversy, just like any of the previous films from this
spectacular filmmaker. There were reports saying that as many as 100 viewers
walked out halfway during the screening as they could not swallow the extreme
brutality in the film. It is also interesting to note that the reviews so far
have been extremely polarizing, with some critics reprimanding not only the
content of the film but also going personal on von Trier himself; and then
there are critics who has looked beyond the surface and praised the strong
points of the film. As a big fan of Lars von Trier, I would like to give my
views on what I know so far about the film, and maybe suggest some questions
for everyone to think about. Just like many of his great films, ‘The House That
Jack Built’ is one that will lead to a lot of discussions and debate for the
years to come.
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| Pondering with ... murder?!
Before we touch on this controversial picture, there are two
points I wish to be clear about. First, there are no justified reasons for
homicide. No matter the victim is a woman, a child, or a man, that is simply
wrong to take another individual’s life. No matter what sort of artistic merit
one can get out from ‘The House That Jack Built’, no one should ever identify
with Jack, the serial killer in the film, even if he could provide any
rhetorical or ‘philosophical’ explanations he could come up with from his
twisted mind. That is a bottom line of morality we have to establish before we
really look into the film. Second, I have concerns, like many others, that Jack
has found killing female victims particularly appealing and significant. I am
worried about that because as a big fan of von Trier’s cinema, I feel that this
can be a knockout blow from the detractors, and that will undermine any
potential discussions regarding the merits of this film. It may sound
insensitive for von Trier to show this film at the epoch of the ‘MeToo’
movement, yet that can also be a deliberate act from the provocative filmmaker,
because he despises political correctness as hypocritical. What I will try to
do is to analyze this issue within the context and style of the film, and I
wish to express that, no matter what von Trier has shown, that is his artistic
freedom and he has to bear the consequence of alienation from certain viewers.
Yet, to jump to the conclusion of reprimanding Lars von Trier as crazy,
misogynistic or evil is just unfair for the artist.
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| Where's the killer?
In a nutshell, the film is about Jack, a serial killer who
has murdered about 60 individuals. During most of the time, Jack was talking to
a mysterious figure Verge, and he tried to rationalize why he wanted to kill.
Drawing on all sort of analogies from history, culture, and philosophy, Jack
believed his murders had artistic merits. Yet, Verge was playing devil’s
advocate – he tried to challenge and debate with Jack about the validity of his
claims. Jack has selected 5 significant incidents that served as milestones to
his murderous rampage, and ironically, not only they were mainly about women,
the brutality of each murder intensified.
It is important to note that the story was seen from the point
of view of Jack. He was clearly a psychopathic individual, and therefore he
could not behave in anyway that resembled a normal individual. Notice also that
the story took place in the 1970s – a time when ideas like equal sex or equal
opportunities were not mature ideas. Jack was an individual who would not show
any compassion to others, and he would not have the ability to step into
other’s shoes and feel for them. I have the feeling that von Trier created Jack
not merely as a crazy character, but as the embodiment of a bundle of
attributes of humanity – the darkest aspects of human nature. Jack could
represent the controlling forces of patriarchy, institutions, and
manipulations, which were all issues that von Trier has criticized throughout
his films. The filmmaker is just reflecting the harsh and ugly reality in the
real world. Jack’s worldview only reflected his limited and narcissistic
perspective towards the environment around him, and one would expect, for a
psychopath like him, the only way to cope with that was to strive for control
and manipulation on those around him. In his twisted sense of psyche, that
meant taking away other’s life. One should not blame von Trier for this,
because all the scenarios he portrayed in the film was based on reality. There
are far more outrageous actions in the world -genocide, child slavery, war
crimes – and yet people can be indifferent to them. All von Trier was trying to
do was to reflect the harsh reality in an honest way, and I would find that
hypocritical if they merely criticized von Trier while being oblivious to the
horror in the real world.
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| To hunt or be hunted. One of the most controversial scenes in the film.
While Jack has killed men, women and children, that was his
murder and sadism towards women and children that has generated controversy
among the viewers. This is an issue we have to analyze with care here. First, I do not agree to the observation that
certain critics find that the female characters in the film are portrayed as
shallow or uninteresting. I have come up with a reason why Jack has to harm
these characters, as there is something common among them other than the fact
that they are all women - they signify the positive attributes of human nature,
which are often embodied within von Trier’s female characters. I cannot accept
the shallow observation that von Trier hates women and therefore he has to make
these characters suffer. If Jack represented the force of evil inherent in
human nature, then it would make more sense that he killed these few women in
particular because he despised what these characters represented. If we fit
this idea into von Trier’s cinema, there one will find it fits very well with
von Trier’s general theme. I find it weird why some writers say ‘I like every
von Trier films except this one’. It may just be the reassurance moves that
they would not be seen as someone who did not understand art, yet if one looked
at the scenario in ‘The House That Jack Built’, it was just a similar scenario
one could find in his other films, like ‘Breaking the Waves’, ‘Dancer in the
Dark’, ‘Dogville’ and ‘Nymphomaniac’. The only difference here is that we are
viewing from the bad guy’s point of view.
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| The moment when you find out your boyfriend is a serial killer. |
We should be aware of the fact that, of the significant
incidents Jack was proud of, the victims had some interactions or even
relationships with him, because they had no knowledge of his monstrous side
(thus he was not a stalker). This was an exemplary characteristic of a
psychopath – they tended to put on masks that made themselves charismatic, and
therefore people might not even aware of the gaps in their personalities. Psychopaths
like Jack were also emotionally manipulative, and that was best illustrated by
his sadistic attitude towards his victims. He not only wanted to kill them, he
moreover wanted to torment them mentally, and played with them as if they were
puppets. And I guess these suspenseful moments were more distressing than the
outrageously violent scenes, because they really got into the emotions of the
audience. I maintain that the female characters not only were not portrayed peripherally,
they were demonstrating some of the great aspects of humanity. Uma Thurman’s
character might appear whiny, yet she was merely being friendly and humorous,
and tried to interact with Jack during the lift. She was plainly unlucky that
her humor has provoked the crazy killer and led to her demise. Sofie Grabol’s
character was courageous because she was a widow who had to raise her sons
alone, and her interaction with Jack was ill-fated because she likely wanted to
compensate for a father figure that the kids lacked. For Riley Keough’s
character, known as ‘Simple’, that was the most heart-breaking and would
generate sympathy from the audience. I guess Keough’s character was the most
representative of von Trier’s theme, and the character resembled that of Bess
(Emily Watson) in ‘Breaking the Waves’ or Selma
(Bjork) in ‘Dancer in the Dark’. Without any knowledge regarding Jack’s true
nature, she had a relationship with Jack, just maybe because she found him
fascinating or so. She treated Jack as a genuine human being, and was
compassionate to him, though this mercy was not returned by Jack. I did not
feel Jack to be a loner on the verge of explosion – because when he hid his
monstrous side, he could co-exist and interact with other people. It was his
psychopathic tendency that has got the better of him and led to destruction,
and eventually his own. As I have said, Jack’s character might represent the
nastiness of human nature. With the female characters, who brought beauty to a
harsh world, they could very likely be destroyed by the dark forces represented
by Jack – be it patriarchal structures, institutions, or just our darkest
impulses. They were the martyrs in a secular world, very much like Bess and Selma in their respective
stories.
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| The psychopathic showdown!
If you are interested in the film, then I recommend you to
give it a go when it shows later this year. It is OK for one to be disgusted or
hate this film, yet you have to watch it and give your own contribution to the
discussion. If one just blindly follows other and says ‘That is trash because
many viewers say so’, then it will no way be constructive to anyone’s
understanding. If this film, like any of von Trier’s previous work, can provoke
intense debate regarding the way we look at cinema, then I think von Trier has
served his purpose.
Film Analysis
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