Lars von Trier’s ‘After’ May Use Still Photography, Much Like ‘La Jetée,’ To Tell Its Story

Last year, Lars Von Trier's next film, “After,” received funding from the Danish Film Institute, as revealed by AFP. The Telegraph later reported that the film would start production this summer. Sadly, no updates since.

Von Trier now lives part-time at a nursing home, and the promise from Producer Peter Aalbæk Jensen was that the situation would not deter the filmmaker from making the film. Now, we’re starting to get a clearer picture on how the whole thing would look like.

Stellan Skarsgård tells Vulture that Von Trier is taking a more experimental approach for his new project:

Do you know the old French film “La Jetée?” “La Jetée” is a film built on black-and-white stills. It’s beautiful. And that one he could do at home. That’s what he’s been talking about. I’d do it. I’d say yes to him — whatever he asks.

That’s rather interesting. Chris Marker’s “La Jetée,” which Terry Gilliam eventually remade as “12 Monkeys,” is told via an unconventional narrative style that blends still photography, voice-over narration, and sound to create a dreamlike, almost hypnotic experience. There are no moving images, the story unfolds through a sequence of black-and-white stills.

Earlier in the year, Producer Peter Aalbæk Jensen revealed that Von Trier’s recent bout with Parkinson’s and his mortality would be taking center stage in the film as “After,” would tackle “death and life after death.”

After has always been designed to be made based on Lars' physical condition. He has always used limitations for something creative, and now it is his own physical limitation that he incorporates into the creative

In the fall of 2022, Von Trier announced that he’d been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease at the age of 66. It was shattering news. He’s one of the great filmmakers of the last 30 or so years, definitely one of the most influential.

Von Trier hasn’t directed a film since 2018’s “The House That Jack Built,” an unfairly maligned 3-hour dark comedy about a serial killer, played by Matt Dillon. It was provocative, disgusting, fearless, trolling — Von Trier’s best traits.

The Danish filmmaker has established himself as one of the great directors of cinema, his influence can be seen everywhere, and that’s thanks to films such as “Breaking the Waves,” “Melancholia,” “Dancer in the Dark” and “Dogville.”