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The House That Jack Built
When I started doing movie reviews I told myself that I will make reviews right after I saw the movie. But there is an exception to this rule. The first and the last time I saw The House That Jack Built was in Jerusalem Cinemateque in the end of 2018. Roughly 5 years ago. And this review will be made from the memory I have of the movie. I have no problem with the existence of this movie. Freedom of Speech is important. But I am not willing to watch it again. Even though I am kind of a fan of the director Lars Von Trier and the movie is arguably very good. It's just I'm not brave enough to sit through it again.
I was hooked on the movie when I heard that it was announced. And then hooked again when the trailer dropped. Even though it made me rather uncomfortable. Then there were stories of people actually going out of the screening of the movie at Cannes in protest against it. Now I understand that they protested the political ideas discussed. But back then I had a perception of the event in the different light. As if people just could not handle what is being shown on a physical level.
I'm not a person who is scared from violent body horror movies. I enjoyed Beau Is Afraid even though it seems to have the same visceral reaction from people. But while with the message of Beau Is Afraid or the Saw franchise or something like The Collection I can agree with, the message of The House That Jack Built is probably even something that the director of the movie Lars Von Trier disagrees with. Which makes it so much more disturbing.
The film is not necessarily a horror film. It's a psychological drama about a guy who is suffering with various mental disabilities. Mainly OCD and psychopathy. And how those mental problems turn the main character into becoming a very brutal serial killer. And also the movie examines political and moral stands of the main character, but in such a way that it is as if the character himself wrote the movie.
Movies have messages in them. It's not a new concept. And those messages are usually points of view of the author of the movie. But perhaps Lars Von Trier wasn't interested in that. He was interested in making a movie about a serial killer where the message is one which a serial killer would choose. That being a serial killer is good in some way or another. Or at least that it's not that bad to kill people. And that's what the movie is trying to do. Which is so strange.
Spoiler
For example the main reason I was so traumatized from the movie, the scene where Jack kills two little boys played by Cohen Day and Rocco Day, is not trying to argue even a little that what the main character does is bad. It does show the horror of the scene for sure. But the whole thing is downplayed by an analogy to hunting of animals and how supposedly brutal the hunting is. And makes it seem like the main character is an artist and a hero for exposing this brutality in a somewhat unorthodox fashion.
But then of course, Lars Von Trier cannot just make suffering of audience end so quickly. Jack takes the younger kid played by Rocco Day to his freezer of dead bodies and mutilates his face in an attempt to freeze him with a smile. The whole thing suggests that Jack is an artist doing a sculpture of sorts. And the whole thing is played for laughs.
I remember people actually laughing at an image of a mutilated corpse of a little boy in the cinema. I remember turning at the audience ( most of which were behind me ) and looking at them angrily, thinking to myself - "How dare you?".
Interesting enough that most people consider this movie a comedy while even the director perhaps doesn't think this way. The comedy aspect of it has more to do with how utterly over the top the things Jack does are, rather then with jokes being intentional. It's probably a defense mechanism. Because how can you take what he does seriously? Nobody could be that brutal. It's absurd right?
While such a reading would make sense for something like Beau Is Afraid, it's not like this with The House That Jack Built.
There was an interview with Matt Dillon ( the guy who played the main character ) and Lars Von Trier where Matt Dillon told the interviewer that he thought the movie would be harder to watch than it ended up being, since he knows that all of it is ultimately fake and nobody actually is being hurt for real.
Then Lars interrupted him saying that there are real acts of violence happening everyday that are way worse than what is shown in the movie. And that the movie is intended to shine a light on some of it. And how people doing those crimes might justify them. And so there is nothing fake about it.
Perhaps I was one of the only people in the audience actually considering this point of view while watching the movie. And that is why it made me so uncomfortable, while other people laughed and enjoyed themselves.
How the movie changed me?
There are not a lot of movies that would influence you directly. Some might suggest possible techniques. Like say watching a Steven Spielberg movie might inspire you to do very interesting camera moves. This movie though literally changed the direction I wanted to go into.
Right before I saw The House That Jack Built I made I'm Not Even Human, a movie where I plotted the story in such a way that the main character, a little boy, brutally kills a man in a graphic fashion. My at the time bad CGI work very underplayed the moment. But I wanted to go further with it. I wanted to make a movie so bad shit violent that nobody would be able to see it ever.
My movie project The 8 Year Olds was this project. But after watching The House That Jack Built I reconsidered. I stopped developing it into the most unwatchable movie ever. I didn't want to be anywhere near that what I had in mind in the beginning. I took the approach of Dunkirk instead. Which builds tension and makes you scared without being overly graphic. Which is a good thing considering that if the movie is too strong, people might consider it a comedy and completely miss the point.
This change also made me realize that I can make a family friendly movie. And it doesn't mean that it would be too safe or too dumb. It just meant that I don't need pictures of mutilated corpses to explore important subjects. And perhaps if I didn't see The House That Jack Built I would not get to this conclusion. And subsequently would not make Moria's Race.
So in a funny way I'm grateful to Lars for taking this burden upon himself and suffering through it. I'm grateful that he showed a way to make things that are great, but also enjoyable.
Happy Hacking!!!
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