European Extreme: Art or Exploitation?
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...