Ive omitted the thumbnail for those of you dont want nudity in your feed--click the link if you do! ;) This is an interesting review of the film from a woman who challenges the interpretation of Von Triers works as misogynistic, a viewpoint subscribed to by people who are only capable of the most facile, reactionary readings of films. She provides some interesting comparisons between it, Requiem for a Dream, and Blue is the Warmest Color, which I am still dying to see; however, some of the other films she champions are somewhat gag-worthy. I have always thought that Von Trier chooses women as the his protagonists because there are more bonds that they must deal with and/or break free from. His female characters are often trapped by socio-economic forces, religious ideology, patriarchy, cultural expectations, family, etc. They seek freedom, self-expression, identity, and acceptance in ways that are often misguided or even twisted, but, to me at least, it is not that von Trier desires to see them tortured--he is merely holding up his lens to show us how humans (and perhaps particularly women) get twisted by civilization and existence. His earliest films (The Element of Crime, Europa, Epidemic) do not feature female protagonists--he takes that turn with Breaking the Waves and has continued to follow that paradigm pretty consistently for a decade and a half (The Idiots doesnt really fit nor does The Boss of it All, which I still havent seen). Anyway, I find the misogynistic label to, of course, be applicable in certain cases, but I find that it is often used to minimize complicated problems with certain male artists instead of grappling with them. Hemingway, Bukowski, Burroughs, Mailer, etc. have all received the label, and it is probably true of most of them to one degree or another, but does it negate their value as writers?
Posted on: Mon, 03 Feb 2014 02:57:09 +0000
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