melancholia

Waiting for the world to end in Lars von Trier’s latest

What with his extensive résumé and his multiple Cannes Film Festival awards, Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier has more than proved his skill behind the camera. But even longtime fans are forgiven for being hesitant when entering a von Trier movie these days. The icy auteur has demonstrated an increasing taste for heaping traumatic levels of physical and psychological abuse on his leading actresses (Emily Watson in Breaking the Waves, Björk in Dancer in the Dark, Nicole Kidman in Dogville, Charlotte Gainsbourg in Antichrist). If the guy is not an unrepentant misogynist, he sure is convincing at playing one on TV.