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)

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)

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)

He sends people to Dexter and offers them his own therapy, whereupon the audience, having paid their way in, dutifully leaves the cinema outraged. I love that bastard. Trier has cleared the bar he set in Nymph()maniac and is debating with himself the nature of art as redemption. In doing so, he struggles to come to terms with the agonizing duality of being both an artist and a pragmatic technician, which is the burr in his saddle as a director. Indeed, everything here is an offering to that auteur duality. It's bloated but apologetic. It's utterly selfish, but the film is the first to admit it. The question is how much the film works without knowing the context. Still, I was completely blown away here by the dream logic that runs through all the sequences. Everything is devoid of temporal or spatial definition; in a strangely dehumanized world, the plot shifts arbitrarily in sharp contrasts, and everything plays out at the very edge of believability. And just like the times when you lie in bed for an hour in the morning staring at the ceiling and trying to reconstruct a vivid dream that seemed meaningful to you, only when the film is over are you given the respite and space to start piecing it all together. (07/10/2018)

Judging by the reviews, I was expecting "boundary-pushing like never before" or "a shocking, practically indigestible creation", which I didn't entirely get. On the other hand, out of good sportsmanship I have to admit that the casual viewer will most likely be taken aback (two couples in the front row left after the second "incident"). But similar conclusions can be applied to almost all of Trier's works, so there's really nothing new under the sun. The House That Jack Built is a profound insight into the mind of a serial killer whose life goal is to achieve what might be called "the perfect murder". Through five chapters and an epilogue, the viewer watches Jack gradually improve and move closer to his dream ideal. As is customary of Trier, once again this results in the most cynical humor and in some places the whole thing slides into hardcore comedy, which I probably enjoyed most. Using art to commit aesthetically perfect murders here is impressive and interesting in its own right, though Trier is of course following in the techniques previously used in Nymphomaniac. Only this time, instead of sex, he chooses murder as the central theme, and he also incorporates an ancient character into the script. And yet I feel that viewers will rankle not at the brutality and the explicit scenes so much as its very view of morality combined with the artistic tone of the whole film. And I believe that's what always brings Lars von Trier the greatest joy. Not that a few weaker individuals will leave the theatre, pass out, or vomit. Because he’s after the ones who go through the whole experience, concede to his artistic intention quite seriously (and with an open mind), and by the end are disgusted to the smallest corner of their souls and don't really know how or if Trier's intention can be understood at all. (14/10/2018)