#80 - The Element of Crime

#80 is the breakthrough debut by Lars von Trier.   This is actually the first film of his I've seen and based on it alone, I'm not sure how far into the catalog to go - LOL

This is a pretty dystopian/noir heavy crime thriller - it reminds me a bit of the scenes in Brazil or Children of Men but on a scale much more decayed - almost Mad Max levels of dystopia.    I don't think there's a single set in the film that couldn't be labeled a shithole

There's some pretty heavy noir elements here too - serial killer being tracked and revisited thru hypnosis.   I think another viewing might give me some stuff I missed but this was not an easy film to get thru.

The lighting and camera angles really dominate the film - the whole thing is almost show in a yellow/red lighting that looks incredibly washed out.  I did some reading and I guess they used a lot of sodium light and monochromatic filtering.  Lars seemed to take delight in unconventional camera angles - a lot of top down shots and a lot of also seeing reflections coming back in the same shots - sort of two points of view in the same shot - That was kinda interesting.

Lars won't show up again for a while in the collection but it's an interesting introduction - there's a special feature of a 90's documentary on here but I probably won't be getting into it - better to save it for later

As stated - this is a man coming back to Europe from Cairo to pursue a serial killer - He is using the methods his mentor described in a often-referred to work called "The Element of Crime" which includes reconstructing part of the criminal's routine to understand him.   All of this is being recalled under hypnosis so there's no saying if the decay and noir are part of the real world or just his recollection. 

Anyways can't ruin anymore of it for you but it's an interesting film - seems like something a college film student might have done in some of it's techniques but hey, go big or go home -

I was even googling to make sure I understood the ending - LOL - it's just so out there

RB