The Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier is arguably more famous for what he has self-consciously left out of his movies than for what he has left in them. From the beginning of his career, he has made a concerted effort to reject all traditions, symbols, and cues associated with big budget Hollywood films.
The Dogme Doctrine
This is the essence of his infamous cinematic manifesto Dogme 95. Far from being simply a call towards naturalism as it is sometimes interpreted, the Dogme movement and its "Vow of Chastity" is actually designed as a focused and defined alternative to what von Trier and his creative peers see as the inherent hypocrisy and dishonesty of the majority of movies that are made in Hollywood.
Dancer in the Dark
Perhaps no other movie addresses this philosophy more directly than the 2000 feature Dancer in the Dark. The set-up for the movie could not be more of a classic Hollywood cliché; the selfless mother, Selma (Bjork), working all hours so she can afford to pay for the necessary medical care for her sick child. The point is driven home even more clearly by the fact that Selma is obsessed with Hollywood musicals—to the point where she escapes into trances that turn her everyday life into dance numbers. Whereas in the Hollywood version, however, everything would work out in the end, in Dancer in the Dark the mother ends up hanged for a crime she didn't commit.
Breaking the Waves
In 1996's Breaking the Waves, von Trier approaches the same perceived dishonestly from a different perspective; this time, the group who is under his microscope is the audience itself. Rarely has a more vivid—and devastating—image of a movie audience been rendered than with the character of Jan (Stellan Skarsgård). Completely paralyzed, Jan is obsessed with watching his young, innocent wife perform self-destructive and demoralizing acts with other men. Unable to participate in the action himself, he finds a perverse outlet by witnessing the debasement of another person.
Truth and Appearances
The extremely self-conscious verisimilitude of the cinematography of both of these films is at once an adherence to the tenets of Dogme and another rebuke of Hollywood films. The movies are made to look so real, so much like home movies made with hand-held cameras, that the violent ends of both heroines and the desperate behavior of the other characters is that much more disturbing—the audience is made to feel like an interloper in a very personal tragedy. Simultaneously, however, von Trier is highlighting the manipulative nature of the films he rejects, which give false impressions of reality and ignore the uglier sides of human nature.
Lars and the Real Girls
It would be inaccurate and, indeed, unfair to von Trier to call him a complete misanthrope. It is not so much that he makes movies to show how debased and hateful human beings are; rather, he rejects the notion that art should refuse to acknowledge this darker side. His emphasis on the ugly and base, rather than a belief that this facet of people is primary, is an antidote to the saccharine deceit of popular movies. Dancer in the Dark and Breaking the Waves both focus on innocent, loving characters who only have the best interests of others in their hearts. Instead of happily ever after, however, they are subjected to the terrible things that often happen to good people in the world.
