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European Extreme: Art or Exploitation?

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The work of Lars Von Trier has been shrouded in controversy due to his frequent use of extreme violence, sex and disturbing subject matter. He even coined the filmmaking movement ‘Dogma’ to help further his and other filmmaker’s cinematic style. However, whilst many critics of Von Trier’s work claim them to be highly exploitive and solely created to shock its audience, there are some that deem it to be artistic. This final blog entry will discuss one of Von Trier’s most controversial works, Antichrist, to decide whether his 2009 film was artistic or made with the intention to provoke and anger. (Von Trier, 2009) Extreme cinema often merges two definitions of extremity. The first is that of visible extremity otherwise known as ‘bodily extremity’. This would typically include sequences of graphic births, “abortion, cannibalism, bodily waste, rape, incest, and the ingestion of urine and animals usually consumed as food in the West.” (Frey, 2016, p.125) Von Trier’s work w...
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The Devil's Backbone: More Fantasy Than Fact?

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(Del Toro, 2001) “What is a ghost? A tragedy condemned to repeat itself time and again? An instant of pain, perhaps? Something dead which still seems to be alive. An emotion suspended in time. Like a blurred photograph. Like an insect trapped in amber.” (Del Toro, 2001). These are the opening lines to Guillermo Del Toro’s 2001 supernatural drama, The Devil’s Backbone. The film is set against the backdrop of the final few years of the Spanish Civil War as an orphanage finds itself trapped in the middle of the conflict as well as facing a possible supernatural threat, but it’s these opening remarks that pose a comparison between the definition of a ghost to the cyclical nature of war. According to Del Toro, he envisioned both The Devil’s Backbone and his later feature, Pan’s Labyrinth, to be his tale on the Spanish Civil War with each interpretation taking on a sibling-like role (McDonald & Clark, 2014, p.143). The aim of this post is to analyse whether the film bares mo...
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How far can a film support a revolution?

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(Eisenstein, 1925) Various factors can begin a revolution but the sustainability is what makes it worthwhile. In Soviet Russia, clashes of class systems led to a nationwide unrest resulting in a large scale revolution in 1917. The aim of the revolution was to topple the Tsarist government ending years of censorship, widespread poverty among the lower classes (Tian-Shanskaia, 1993, pp. 141) and an extreme reliance on oppression and violence to exploit as a fear tactic. After the spark of the revolution had been ignited (which many believe to be the uprising upon the Battleship Potemkin in 1905), it was the aid of Soviet Film and Cinema that helped further this movement thanks to its universal popularity and appeal. (Eisenstein, 1925)   It was Lenin who initiated the importance of Soviet Cinema in regards to its purpose in the Russian Revolution and how he envisioned “cinema, literature and art would strive to describe and interpret this new world” (Gillespie, 20...
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How did New Labour ideology affect British filmmaking during the ‘90s and naughties?

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(Curtis, 2003) On the 2 nd of May 1997, Anthony Charles Lynton Blair was elected as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and spearheaded the New Labour political agenda. After years of the Conservative party in power under the reign of Margret Thatcher and John Major, Blair’s election signified a period of change for the country and a change in the Labour philosophy to sustain its future (Collins, 2005, pp. 41). These systemic changes had a major impact upon the UK film industry as they now began to adopt the policy of ‘The Third Way’. One prime example of a filmmaker utilising this new ideology is Richard Curtis, writer of films such as Four Weddings and a Funeral and Notting Hill, yet it was in 2003 in which he made, arguably, one of the most prolific British films in recent memory; Love Actually . (Curtis, 2003) The main priority for films of the Third Way was to appeal to a wider audience, especially to international markets. In 1998, Chris Smith, the First...
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How does Contemporary German Film portray the past?

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(Becker, 2003) When the Berlin Wall fell on the 9 th of November in 1989, it signified the re-unification of Germany, a state that had been split apart since the culmination of the Second World War. Russia had relinquished their grip on East Germany meaning that Germany could form once again and celebrate their freedom as a union. Scholars criticise German film in this period at how they gloss over their past and rewrite it for themselves (Engur, 2015, pp. 145). The film in which this blog post will focus on is Wolfgang Becker’s ‘ Good Bye Lenin’ and how his motion picture addresses the changes Germany underwent soon after the collapse of the Berlin Wall. (Becker, 2003)  ‘ Good Bye Lenin’ centres around the reunification of Germany choosing to focus on a son who has to hide the truth from his mother whom has recently come out of a coma. In his film, Becker suggests that the reunification of Germany resulted in cultures merging and ways of life altering for good....
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La Haine: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: For Everyone?

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(Kassovitz, 1995) Liberty. Equality. Fraternity. Those are the three pledges that the tricolour flag of France promises their citizens. In the 1990’s, a period of substantial migration from previously colonised French nations, these pledges were challenged due to riots and unrest across France. These riots came from the Banlieue districts, specifically the youth who were being victimised by their government and law enforcement. Due to this chaos swamping much of French culture, filmmakers took a stand to voice their anger at this inequality. It was the shooting of a Maghrebian boy, Makome M’Bowole, by a police officer, that inspired Mathieu Kassovitz to write his tale of inequality and unrest across France (Vincendeau, 2012), La Haine (Kassovitz, 1995). The aim for this post is to study Kassovitz’s text and discover how it relates to the civil disorder, how the promise of the French Flag lied to them and how the Banlieue acted almost as a substitute country. (Kassovitz, 1995...
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