One part Brechtian experiment, and one part send up of America, Lars von Trier imported English language stars (including Nicole Kidman) and staged a 1930s gangsters’ tale in a studio stripped of all realism but blistered with turmoil. You’ve never seen anything like this!
This early triumph by Lars von Trier, which won no less than three prizes at Cannes, is one of his most bizarre yet accessible works: a feverish retooling of film noir, an unhinged thriller, and a visually mind-blowing odyssey into a nightmare of our past.
A difficult yet rewarding film from the equally complex Danish provocateur Lars von Trier! This fiercely polemical, little-seen sequel to Dogville tackles a topic as sensitive as slavery, all the while maintaining its predecessor’s Brechtian premise, anti-American bent, and yes, its brilliance.
Lars von Trier takes a starring role in his second feature, a metafictional—and metaphysical—exploration of creative culpability. If the title suggests a resonance with our contemporary condition, Epidemic soon reveals itself as a playfully ironic portrait of the artist-philosopher as a young man.