Rating: 2.5/5
Here I am holding this jack. Do you have a jack I can borrow?
I watched the R-rated version, and it’s hard to imagine that the excised gore and viscera would have made a significant difference in my rating of this
Jack is an architect. Or Jack is an engineer who aspires to be an architect. Regardless, Jack is also a serial killer
Jack is Lars Von Trier, who has built a career out of other’s misery, in conversation with himself as Virgil from Dante’s Inferno, recalling five murder moments as Virgil guides him to hell
There’s no connective tissue between murders, no patterns beyond the need to film it — that Peeping Tom fetishization of constructing the perfect image — that Hannibal obsession with elevating death to art
A couple of points, the movie achieves legitimately funny black humor — Jack tries to leave a murder scene, but his OCD is so pronounced that he keeps going back in and cleaning — but those moments wash away in grim naval gazing
Once it digressed into the endless rant on wine, decay, and how iconic Mussolini and Hitler’s “artworks” are, I got so bored. Using footage from Night and Fog to provoke is so childish — it just reminds me of the boys in high school who made Nazi jokes to be edgy
The movie isn’t inherently flawed — the performances are all great, and some of the cinematography is striking — some shots are unlike anything I can recall seeing. Also, I like the idea of a serial killer recounting his life to Virgil
I like several of Von Trier’s movies, but this is not one of them. In some ways worse than a failure — just a clumsy masturbation session for his diehard fans