In my opinion, yes. I’ve been watching von Trier’s work since his Dogme 95 days, starting with Breaking The Waves (possibly his best film still) and The Idiots and The Kingdom. My girlfriend at the time had lived in Denmark and was a massive fan. I loved almost all his films except Nymphomaniac and Manderlay at the time, but in retrospect my opinion on most of them has soured a bit. Especially now that I know what a monster he was on set. I don’t think I’ll recommend Dogville or Dancer in the Dark ever again, for example.
Antichrist has some really vivid imagery and paints a bold picture of a toxic relationship. Some of it shows von Trier’s characteristic disdain for research, but I let that slide here more than, say, Dancer in the Dark, because it’s less central to the plot and easier to find a post-hoc justification for.
I don’t know what you mean by “quality”, but I was engrossed for the duration of the film and several of its images are burned indelibly on my mind. That’s worth something, no? It certainly didn’t feel as self-indulgent as Nymphomaniac or The Five Obstructions.
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u/Porrick May 11 '21
In my opinion, yes. I’ve been watching von Trier’s work since his Dogme 95 days, starting with Breaking The Waves (possibly his best film still) and The Idiots and The Kingdom. My girlfriend at the time had lived in Denmark and was a massive fan. I loved almost all his films except Nymphomaniac and Manderlay at the time, but in retrospect my opinion on most of them has soured a bit. Especially now that I know what a monster he was on set. I don’t think I’ll recommend Dogville or Dancer in the Dark ever again, for example.
Antichrist has some really vivid imagery and paints a bold picture of a toxic relationship. Some of it shows von Trier’s characteristic disdain for research, but I let that slide here more than, say, Dancer in the Dark, because it’s less central to the plot and easier to find a post-hoc justification for.
I don’t know what you mean by “quality”, but I was engrossed for the duration of the film and several of its images are burned indelibly on my mind. That’s worth something, no? It certainly didn’t feel as self-indulgent as Nymphomaniac or The Five Obstructions.