The House That Jack Built (2018)

I am seriously counting down the days until this hits theaters near me!👍

Honestly, I’ve got a feeling this is going to be my absolute favorite movie of the year...😬

Vald won't be a total disaster...

Hopefully.. there's definitely potential here.

I heard people were actually walking out during the premiere because they just couldn't handle it 🤣

Honestly, I'm kind of loving it... it just means we're getting that classic, unapologetic von Trier vibe again 😬

Ugh...

I'm telling you, Nymphomaniac was just... kind of 🤣

I don't know, man... von Trier just loves to make these movies loaded with symbolism just to mess with the audience, and I’m honestly worried this one is going to be more of the same. I can't stand those directors who think they can just stack shots together and then feel the need to shove some deep "meaning" down our throats, like we're all too dim to get the point or like he needs to spoon-feed us his little vision. It's just not my style—if you're into that kind of pretension, go right ahead, but I'll pass.

His movies are pretty niche, I guess...

I can get behind just about anything he makes...

I’ve always had a soft spot for the weird stuff. I'm not exactly "normal" myself, anyway... honestly, being normal sounds exhausting.😁

Look, everything else might be fine, but from what I can gather in the trailer—and hey, don't quote me if I'm misreading it—this whole thing where they throw in animals like tigers or lambs to supposedly show us what the characters are feeling inside? It feels incredibly childish. Honestly, it feels like something a first-year film student would come up with to look deep. If you can't convey an emotion through the actors themselves—which is literally the entire point of hiring them—then why do you need to lean on these heavy-handed artistic symbols to do the heavy lifting? I just don't get it. It makes zero sense to me.

If this actually turns out to be watchable, we might just have a massive hit on our hands.

The latest von Trier is hitting American theaters on December 13th.

Brutal. If we can handle Halloween, we can handle this.

I'm gonna skip this one. Look, I respect von Trier, but I've honestly had enough of that heavy-handed misanthropy he puts in every single movie he makes.

If you want something truly brutal and uncensored, you have to watch 😁

Gerald Jackson48 said:I'm gonna skip this one. Look, I respect von Trier, but I've honestly had enough of that heavy-handed misanthropy he puts in every single movie he makes.

For me, it's the ego that wears thin.

electriccanyon26 said:For me, it's the ego that wears thin.

Exactly.

Maybe directing works as a kind of therapy for him, but as a viewer, I'm just not digging what he's putting out there.

wiredbison82 said:The latest von Trier is hitting American theaters on December 13th.

The first film this year I’m actually looking forward to—aside from Gilliam's Don Quixote—is arriving mid-December. 🤦 A year even more lackluster than 2016... my last hope lies with this one.

Amanda Robinson4 said:I heard people were actually walking out during the premiere because they just couldn't handle it 🤣

Honestly, I'm kind of loving it... it just means we're getting that classic, unapologetic von Trier vibe again 😬

At Cannes, I imagine they walk out after every single screening. 😛

I get the tickets for free
but they couldn't care less about the actual movie
it's just all about snapping photos at the start

either the film is total garbage

there isn't a third option...

Man, before they even started reacting like people did after that Mexican film 😛

From what I've heard, this whole thing is supposed to be pretty nasty...

Discussing over at filmspovjedaonica, and we've got a thread going.

Trier almost tripped and fell into making a dud here, but he pulled it off. The guy is just too good a director—even when he’s spinning his wheels and repeating himself endlessly. 6/10

SPOILERS

Jack is the most derivative von Trier yet. It feels like a cheap attempt at a European blockbuster. Structurally? It's basically a nymphomaniac without the sex and regret—just violence without the love, and sadism without the masochism. A Christian Antichrist. It's basically a gore horror flick dressed up in high-brow discourse. It's like Albert Speer wandered right out of that "i am a Naza" press conference at Cannes and straight into the movie, which says a lot about the narcissism—and the dark humor—of the director. An autopoietic film told in five "incidents" leading to a final "katabasis" (very moody, very music theory vibes). You can see some motifs borrowed from fra Hell. There are these opulent, sometimes forced analogies and visual metaphors everywhere. The artist as a serial killer, and vice versa. Total pretentiousness. Very Romanticist and Academic in its visuals. Medusa's raft. Dante and Virgil. Bach and Gould. Two Williams—Bouguere and Gull. You can definitely feel the Tarantino influence, though I doubt that'll win over the US audience. Honestly, I'd love to see von Trier get back to smaller projects like The boss of IT All, otherwise, his next one might actually be boring and bad...

Amanda Robinson4 said:Man, before they even started reacting like people did after that Mexican film 😛

From what I've heard, this whole thing is supposed to be pretty nasty...

I'll be watching tonight.