The House That Jack Built [Blu-ray]

Having watched other films directed by Lars von Trier, I was shocked by this latest film: not by the brutal violence and relentless carnage, but by the clear demarcation by which the film differentiates the concepts of good and evil. Unlike his other films, the narrative drive of the story compels the viewer to assent to the murderous protagonist's damnation, portrayed in vivid eschatological imagery that is unexpected in a work of Lars von Trier.The film is basically a retelling of Dante's "Inferno." Like that great Italian masterpiece, this film is a vivid response to, & a metaphorical reinterpretation of, the political turmoil of the present day. The presence of red hats, for example, in the controversial "family picnic" scene is an overt reference to MAGA, and provides a hermeneutical key by which the brutality of the film may be seen as parable for the artificially engineered political demagoguery through which toxic masculinity serves the interest of a certain orange creature and his plutocratic masters.It may be that the protagonist as the embodiment of this toxic masculinity (cf. Jack's words to the woman whose breast he slices off) was what moved Lars von Trier to shift the narrative of the film to a critical self-examination of himself as a story-teller, film director and artist. It's not so clear, however, how the film's ending could be seen as resolving the tension brought about by this meta-narratological retrospective and introspective dynamic.As far as I see it, there is an awareness that the present day political predicament has brought forth moral quandaries that cannot abide the hedonism and supra-ethical self-affirmation of "Nymph()maniac" without completing & perfecting the message of "Antichrist," which I believe this film accomplishes.

Region A: Scream/Shout Factory Blu-ray.ASIN: B07ZWBH9FNSins, aesthetic or otherwise, unfold: ham-fisted flashbacks, often of events that occurred onscreen mere moments before they are relayed to Verge (a nod to Dante's Inferno - long story), are the most grievous. There's a weird recurring bit cribbed from D.A. Pennebaker's iconic film of Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues" from the Dylan doc, Don't Look Now (pictured) that awkwardly seeks to ally Jack with, I dunno, super famous people or something. Indeed, Bowie's 'Fame' plays ad nauseum on the soundtrack. (von Trier's grasp of the U.S., where he has never been, has always been shaky.) The archival/stock (mostly public domain) footage (great art, music and yes, architecture - murder as art... heavy) is frequently replayed, too, so that by the end of the film we are left with the impression that we have just watched a pedestrian B-grade horror movie remixed by a first-year art-school student who feels he has something to say. And that we have watched it twice in a row. The stock footage includes Glenn Gould tickling the ivories at his home - if Gould's estate was hoodwinked they should sue.A wildly miscast Dillon is unable to play the self-aware psychopath. (The brylcreemed hair and unfashionable eyeglasses he sports in an effort to look like a socially maladroit misfit is laughable. Say what you will about his chops - he's still a handsome devil.) In fact, he underplays the emotionless Jack so thoroughly that his greatest line is an affirmative "OK," delivered to his girlfriend/victim Jacqueline, both cast in the flat, uninspired tones of the 1970s color palette the film is staged in. He calls her Simple as part of his torture regime—it's also von Trier's self-aware nod to critics accusing him of misogyny. Von Trier doesn't like simplicity. When an early draft of Antichrist was completed, the filmmaker wasn't satisfied with the volume of hate it directed at women, so he sought out an expert on the subject to push the misogynistic aspects further. Of course the real experts on misogyny are all women, so von Trier found "misogyny expert" (what a gig) Heidi Laura and paid her to offer advice on more effective means of depicting the deeply seated despisement of women in his film. After all, would a misogynist do that?Simple is, therefore, a smoke screen. Walk through it and you're left with Jack, who has already killed someone with a tire jack (get it?), and now he's emotionally moved by and ultimately kills someone he calls Simple but who is really named Jacqueline, the feminine version of himself. "If one is so unfortunate as to have been born male, then you're also born guilty. Think of the injustice in that!," Jack even tells Jacqueline. It's both the big reveal that the women von Trier abuses in his films are all versions of himself and an invitation to imagine what sort of film we might have been left with had she been granted protagonist status in a "real" serial killer film, The House That Jacqueline Built.But von Trier didn't make that film. Instead he tossed off this puerile attempt to silence his critics, using without examination every tired trope from the serial killer movie genre there is, and then layering another trite trip-to-hell story line over it. (A literal portrayal of hell that is literally an eternity to sit through.) A filmmaker's work can, in theory, be interesting—fascinating, if repellent - at least watchable—when misogyny and misanthropy are driving forces. (Kubrick's The Shining -featuring another 'Jack', also with career disappointments and the 'slasher' Don't Answer the Phone fit the bill.) Here, examined, we're given instead raw narcissism, humdrum in the end, a soul worth glimpsing only for a second before casting aside. Nothing to behold. von Trier, again, proves to be an empty bag.A few afterthoughts: there's a scene in which Dillon practices 'normal' facial expressions in the mirror. Nicole Kidman (Dillon's psychopathic co-star in To Die For) did this to much better effect in the underrated Malice. Also, Jack is a Glenn Gould (un-witting co-star via archival footage) enthusiast, as is Hannibal Lector... speaking of which, there's a glimpse of the William Blake painting, which was a large part of Red Dragon. Ironic homage? A riff on The Serial Killer As Genius trope? "Respectable" serial killer entertainment? Who knows? Who Cares?Padded with stock footage, clips from every(!) von Trier film ever made and archival (often of the atrocity variety) footage. Also, clips from previous scenes will be recycled moments later.If you want to see Uma Thurman's face bashed in, taxidermy practiced on children (an art installation, dontcha know) ,and, most odious and repellent, Jack's rumination on "the art" of the Third Reich - specifically mass murder and terror (complete with archival footage - Pol Pot, Idi Amin are included for good measure). During a particularly sadistically drawn out scene involving an Asian and an African-American, both whimpering in fear - the only minority roles, mind you.In the extras Lars himself - dressed in Mishima(?) drag proclaims: "This is not a movie, it's a genocide. No more Trump." (A single mother and her two children are given red caps by Jack before being executed) Whoah, a parable on the current climate...the doomed family wearing red hats. Good grief. Is this a film or a pricey exercise in trolling?Oh, this is 2 1/2 hours long - you'll be conscious of every passing minute, believe you me. (The twenty minute trip to hell doesn't help: in fact it's filmdoms dullest version of hell you'll ever see.)

My rating is for the movie, because I rented it on Youtube. My complaint is for the blu ray disc not playing. I read and understood in the description that this was a region B disc. I still proceeded to purchase because I have a multi-region blu ray player that will play discs formatted for regions A, B, or C. When the dic arrived, I set my player to region B and got an error saying that this disc will play in region B players. I popped it out and put in a other region B disc I own to see if it would play. It fired up with no problem, so I know I'm set to region B. I tried this disc again and got the error again. I systematically cycled through all regions and tried the dis in each one. Got the same error no matter what region I set it to. This disc will not play. I'm at a loss as to what else to do but return it.

How a movie, in this day and age, comes without subtitles is beyond me.Otherwise a technically fine BD.

About halfway through, I'm extremely bored by this, which isn't at all what I expected from a Lars von Trier film about a serial killer. Undoubtedly a deliberate move by von Trier, the acting in this seems consistently forced and awkward to the point where it's cringeworthy just to watch it. There are indeed some unpleasantly violent scenes, but again, they're curiously devoid of any captivation or emotion; it's "just" someone who kills people "getting on with killing people". It's difficult to explain, but not in a way that I'm trying to persuade you that it's interesting to watch in any way.

Controversy is what follows L.V.T. and this was no different.So I waited for the blu ray release to watch it.Great performances,beautifully photographed and watchable for the first few "episodes" with it's dark black humour.Then it gets uncomfortable but if have seen the likes of Henry/Natural Born Killers/Man Bites Dog you'd know what to expect.Except you probably wouldn't ! Did not think the violence was over the top visually,one moment was seen nearly 50 years ago in Soldier Blue.The ending was surreal to say the least.The extra's last just short of an hour but are mainly of Lars,many pieces are repeated in the 2 major interviews and gives some guidance if struggling with what you have seen.

If someonehad said to me I'd ever watch a Matt Dillon film. Iwould have said yeah right, course I will. I don't watch pretty boy films.How wrong was I! I first heard about this film ages ago and scoured the net to see the trailer. I found it interesting so as soon as Amazon got a release date for The House That Jack Built I immediately ordered it. I wasn't disappointed at all. It had the strange logic to give a serial killer OCD and on one of the kills it does get bizarre as he has to check every nook and cranny to make sure he was going to get away with it. Another thing that surprised me is that Uma Thurman is in this film. Another bit of humour in the chats between her character and Jack, before her end comes.The only bit I did find a little strange was the end of the movie. I'll have to watch it again to see if I understand it any better. It's my first Lars Von Trier movie and I may have to seek out the others.

I've given up on Von Trier ever reclaiming the heights of "Europa" or "Breaking thr Wave", but okay, he was still doing arrogantly grand and daring things in, for example, "Melancholia" and "Nymphomaniac". "Jack" is, to me, another step down. To wit, in each episode, as he moves in for each kill, Jack seems to have a different basic personality -- the film is more of a collage of different killers than Of one Jack -- and in a number of these episodes we so clearly see what's going to happen that we can well wonder how long we'll be kept waiting. Just as Jack is actually a series of psychopaths, different people, so the different strands of the narrative come from different discourse realms— Jack’s dialogue is informal in style, the way people talk, but his voice-over meditations are formal and bookish, sounding like awkward translation into English; and the themes chewed over in these monologues — the true nature of art, Architecture versus Engineering, Etc., are discussed in an embarrassingly silly way... like a bright kid shooting off his mouth too soon. Does the film drive home any insight about the psychology of serial killers? I'm still waiting for enlightenment on that. My favorite part was a completely unexpected, and extensively developed, "Epilogue", which comes from a totally different world from the rest of the film (literally), and at least pretends to put the whole preceding film in a fresh context. Gutsy. Von Trier always was that. Overall, this film’s a wreck you just have to salute.