Provocateur and innovator

Sensation of the Berlin Film Festival: "Nymphomaniac" Lars von Trier without bills

At the Berlin Film Festival, the first part of the complete - directorial - version of the obviously scandalous “nympho” of the Danes Lars von Trier was shown for the first time - that, apparently, will not fall into the world rental

"Nymphomaniac" can be called the history of the sin -breeder. Kadr from the film

On Berlinal-2014, Russian full-length films (selected-for the Generation children's paintings contest-only the cartoon Leonid Bram, “My Personal Elk”) are absent. What can you say? Yes, this is a shame for our state film structures and a painful blow to the image of Russian cinema. But, firstly, it is really difficult to find worthy festival paintings in Russia in Russia. Secondly, it is especially difficult to detect those that correspond to the ideologies of Berlinale, who loves acute political and social statements: the Ministry of Culture of Medinsky does not sponsor such films.

Perhaps, by the way, another explanation of the non -participation of Russia: in fundamentally ignoring our paintings, Berlinale, proclaiming the fight against censorship and protecting the rights of minorities, expressed his hostility to the policy of the Russian authorities.

However, the regulars of Berlinale is hardly upset by the Russian wasteland. They may not even notice her. Our cinema is not in fashion. Here are the shows of Nymphomaniac-the first film by Lars von Trier after he was declared in the Cannes Persona Non Grat-yes, they will cause unconditional excitement. Moreover, the Berlin version of the film, about which it has long been known that it contains porno epizodes, will be as much as 25 minutes longer in European rental and on the next Thursday, February 13, will appear on our screens. The second part is promised in March.

The return of the misanthrope

After the notorious Cannes press conference dedicated to the film "Melancholy", many (Trier's fans with horror, his haters-joyfully) thought that the career of the most radical and unpredictable director of the latest times was put a cross. Trier, recall, froze stupidity there. He always did not like publicity and press conferences, and then he was also taken out by idiotic issues. In the end, to the question: why did he use Wagner's music in the film, is he a Nazi case? - He blurted out irritably: yes, I'm a Nazi. And then he suffered, like Ostap Bender. Everything would have done, but the world press, part of which came to Cann not for the sake of cinema, but for the sake of scandals, created the elephant from the fly, having shifted the words of Trier ten times (it was clear how many journalists directly with the press conferences transfer “lightning” from their computers to their editorials with large headlines: “von Trier declared himself a fan of Hitler!”) As a result, a stupid joke turned into the same, there was a stupid joke. That Trier in the eyes of the public appeared a monster. And Cannes, who at first tried to soften the scandal (good, and Trier immediately apologized), announced his idol, which became the face of the Cannes festival of the last two decades, Persona Non Grat. This did not prevent a reward to the “melancholy” prize for the best female role played by Kirsten Dunst.

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“Nymphomaniac” is about the severity of life that does not end in anything good. She is not about sexual obsession. She is about despair

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Of course, Trier is not a Nazi. The director must be judged by his paintings. Is there a Nazism in them? Even the question is so inappropriate. As a result, last year, the main selector of Cannes Thierry Fremo made a statement: everyone understood everything wrong. Trier de was declared Persona non grata not forever, but only for a year. But what happened was warned by the protruding people: a stupid scandal would not turn out against Trier, but against Cannes. Not Trier will lose Cannes, which has been guided by for a long time, and Cannes will lose its favorite director.

So it happened. Soon after the scandal, Trier said that he was even glad to free himself from the close friendly UZ of the Cannes. After all, for twenty years he drove his films, sometimes driving them like horses, to the May Cannes. Now he felt free. And please, - gave the "nympho" to Berlin.

By the way, the fact that Berlinale grabbed onto this picture (of course, with additional joy to show Kuzkin’s mother to the competitor - Cannes), unnecessary evidence of the obvious fact: no one else perceives the words of Trier that he is a Nazi. After all, Berlinale and Germany are extremely scrupulous in all issues regarding fascism. The slightest doubts arise, they would not let Trier a cannon shot to them.

The fact that the questions have been removed is also indicated by another detail: the number of stars of the first magnitude ready to act with Trier (even despite the fact that the new film has a glory almost pornographic) has expanded significantly. In the “nymphomaniac, they starred along with Charlotte Hensbur, already traditional for Trier, stellanked by Scarsgard and William Defoe (though he is not in the first part of the film), Uma Turman, Shia Labef, Christian Slater and others. The Berlin version of the film is not only because it is longer and should be expected more frank episodes (by the way, it was removed by the new one. Computer technology: faces and upper parts of the bodies of stars are connected to the genitals of understudies - real porn actors), - it was mounted by von Trier itself! And that film that goes in Europe and will now be released with us, not quite it. Trier will always invent something. This time-according to legend-he had nothing to do with the installation of the rolling version of the film, allegedly entrusting his Montsu editor, whose work never intervened.

Lars von Trier (on the right) with actors Stellan Skarsgard and Charlotte Hensbur while working on the film Nymphomaniac. Germany, Cologne, September 2012
Confession of the sin -breeder

The most interesting thing is that the structure of the “nympho” Trier revealed at the ill-fated Cannes press conference of 2011. Obviously, the film by that time had already developed in his mind. He said then that he would definitely make religious porn, where “long smart conversations” will be inserted between the hard episodes-so that the film stretches for four hours and journalists are exhausted by the beginning of the press conference. But no one took that story of von Trier seriously, considering that he was simply mocking the “magazines” who had taken him. Meanwhile, the “nymphomancer” in the rolling version (if we talk about both parts) lasts exactly four hours (and in the directorial version, according to rumors, all five and a half). And it consists precisely from love episodes with elements of porn, which are interspersed with long smart (often funny and witty) dialogs. An elderly man, who is played by Stellan Skarsgard, adored by trier, is a battered woman on the street in a cold winter. He leads to himself, begins to solder with tea and broth, and she tells her story - the story of a sin -breeder, which he seeks to justify.

The woman is depicts by Charlotte Hensbur, filming in the third in a row the film Trier after Antichrist and Melancholy, - an extra reason to combine these films in the trilogy. Trier has almost completely trilogies, sometimes skillfully, sometimes artificially arranged. European (“element of crime” - “epidemic” - “Europe”). Women's (“dissecting waves” - “idiots” - “dancing in the dark”). The unfinished satirical American (“Dogville” - “Manderley” - the third film “Vasington” has not yet been shot and it is not known whether it will be).

The new trilogy has already been called depressive.

Nature condemns the heroes of Lars von Trier to loneliness. Frame from the movie "Nymphomaniac"

The split cinema

Trier is often called a provocateur. In fact, this is not an insult in itself: in the modern art, for example, where the main genre has long been not easel painting, but installation (including videoart), provocation is one of the main recognized artistic techniques.

Nevertheless, yes, Trier is a provocateur, if only because those who idolize him, and those who blaspheme, are approximately equally. After the “Antichrist” “Dancing in the Dark”, an unprecedented storm began at the Cannes festival in the hall: half of the hall cried out indignantly “Bu-oo !!!”, half applauded.

The fact that Trier is considered a dangerous provocateur is also evidenced by the attitude of the American film academy towards it. The most famous director of Europe, a person who has invented the first radical moviemanifier after the French “New Wave”-“Dogma-95”, who instilled in the developed world fashion for Danish cinema-Trier himself was never nominated for Oscar. In general, only singer Bjork was nominated for all his films - for one of the songs “dancing in the dark” and actress Emily Watson for his role in “dissecting the waves”. But the Danish woman Suzanne Bire, the absolute creature of Trier, received the Oscar as a director. Funny! It is as if the Oscar for the New Testament received not his hero (and actually the creator), but the attentive reader of the Nagorno-Issue.

Perhaps Trier is really a provocateur. Who knows what is hidden in those 25 secret minutes of the complete directorial version of the “nympho”, which the author is not able to comment, since they were first shown in Berlin only on February 9?

Nevertheless, it still seems that Trier is not so much a provocateur as a deceiver (his films never live up to expectations and predictions) and an innovator.

After all, the official version of the “nympho”, the one that the author saw and which will be released in the Russian box office, is not even about sex. It is about loneliness and sadness - with a mass of funny, typical of the trier of replicas and observations, when combining the Rammstein and Bach group in the ordered music, under whose melancholy choral prelude to the “nymphomancer” they regularly fuck. And this in itself is comical, even though Trier parallel to the tribute to his beloved Tarkovsky (this choral prelude sounds in Solaris).

Frame from the movie "Nymphomaniac"

Harmony issues

In the "Antichrist" - the first part of his depressive trilogy - Trier stated that sex is nature, and nature is from the devil. Nature is a killer. And her exponent is a woman. Now, in the “Nymphomaniac” (in its initial part), Trier demonstrates a woman whom nature and sex were also actually killed. Although it was perceived by it as rebellion. Nature does not doom to loneliness.

“Nymphomaniac” is generally about the task, the severity of life, which does not end in anything good. She is not about sexual obsession. She is about despair. About attempts to find a way out in satisfaction, which ultimately leads only to repentance. At the same time, the institute of marriage is also a linden (a funny headquarters with a Uma Turman, whose heroine terrorizes her husband, who decided to go to his mistress).

At the end of the first part, a detailed explanation follows - with the sort of Greenee schemes and illustrations - which is polyphony and how variety is formed into harmony. And the heroine seems to have a polyphony - many lovers. And in the end, by her admission, as if alone. The meaning of the film at this moment, however, is in the opposite: in human life, where polyphony also leads his own party, harmony is not built in any way.

Photos: Ina Fassbender/Reuters, provided "Central Partnership"