The House That Jack Built

Ici, Trier franchit la limite de l’acceptable comme encore jamais auparavant. Mais une fois de plus, il s’en tirera – probablement – grâce à ses cadrages artistiques particuliers. À moins qu’il ne soit cette fois boudé comme un vulgaire has-been… Aimer ce film, c’est être comme Jack et ça, on n’en a pas envie. Et reconnaître ses qualités artistiques viendrait plus d’une posture arrogante que d’une véritable connaissance et ouverture d’esprit. Enfin, qui sait si Jack ne deviendra pas, à terme, le Henry du vingt-et-unième siècle. Avec quelques heures de recul, je me dis que la partie sur la chasse, qui est la plus extrême, est paradoxalement aussi la plus intéressante avec son abstraction allant jusqu’à un degré caricatural. Franchement, personne ne peut servir un truc pareil au grand public sans cligner de l’œil, même si ça ne se prétend pas être autre chose. [Cannes] (16/05/2018)

Je pense que The House That Jack Built est la comédie la plus noire que j’ai jamais vue. Par contre, j'ai du mal à imaginer comment on pourrait la prendre au sérieux ! Pendant la séance, mes émotions alternaient entre « ce Trier est vraiment un génie ! » et « ce Trier est vraiment un enfoiré ! ». À part la fin qui m’a légèrement dérangé, tout le reste était bon. [Sitges 2018] (09/10/2018)

Stand by Lars. A manifestation of misogyny, authorial anxiety, provocation and self-defense. A therapeutic happening, which demonstrates, using the example of a murderous human caricature, what it is like when a filmmaker finds himself in a personal cleansing and the only path leading forward is to hell. I wasn't irritated by the fact that Lars crosses the boundary and makes fun of the taboo (almost every boundary thus broken is defended and relativized by Jack himself in voice over). However, I was rather annoyed that the film did not really shake me and manipulate the traditional Trier rudeness. But the more time that passed for me since the screening, the more I have to acknowledge some form of cleansing and irresistible compulsiveness that The House That Jack Built brings. And I was laughing at the cut scenes with Speer and Hitler. This is truly beyond good and evil. I like the bloated Danish castaway there the most. BTW, don't be fooled by the attractive subtitles. The reception at Cannes was quite warm. Probably because most haters left the hall during the scene with the children. (17/05/2018)

Lars Von Trier is a controversial director like David Lynch, and his previous work has so far passed me by, so I'm pleasantly surprised with his new film, which, although again not for mainstream audiences, uses an attractive theme that reminds me of the classic Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer. Matt Dillon plays Jack with grace and deserves academic accolades for his performance. The film describes five incidents where Jack mercilessly murders and it definitely gives you uneasy feelings because what he does to his victims is beyond belief. The brutality is solid, but there were a few scenes where I was hoping Trier would go further, for instance the fifth incident and the full metal jacket experiment were woefully underused. It's two and a half hours long, but I didn't get bored and I enjoyed Jack's intelligent philosophising, from which I even learned something interesting, though Dante's Inferno at the end may have been too much. A disturbing, raw, smart and psychologically challenging film featuring black humour and sarcasm and I enjoyed it. 80% (26/12/2018)

Despite the violence, this is one of Trier’s most approachable films, one where the symbolism and the controversy are replaced by pragmatism and black humour, and yet I really don’t know what I’m supposed to get from it. The arthouse approach results in a stylisation of the violence, which is still quite brutally carried out, even on children, and following only the mind and thought processes of a murderous freak turns The House That Jack Built into nothing but an irritating, wannabe intellectual pose. At times it’s entertaining and the narrative concept is effective in the end, but what can I do with that when I there’s nothing that would make me enjoy the story subjectively. Maybe it’s a brilliant testimony of modern society, time will tell, but I don’t believe things are that bad in the world. Overall, I didn’t get bored, thanks to the brilliant Dillon and the many amazing ideas, but it missed me by a long shot. (16/10/2018)