I've been waiting a long time to hear Lars Von Trier's voice again. Too long, honestly. Ever since he revealed his Parkinson's diagnosis back in 2022, Von Trier has gone almost completely silent. Every update since then, about his health or about "After," the film that will likely be his last, has come from producers Peter Aalbæk Jensen and Louise Vesth. We've barely heard from the man himself. For a filmmaker who spent four decades unable to keep his mouth shut, that silence felt eerie.
Well, he's back. Sort of. Von Trier sat down with his daughter, filmmaker Agnes Trier, for a 23-minute film made for "Descendant." That's the art exhibition he curated, which played Willumsens Museum in Denmark this summer and just opened at the Thiel Gallery in Stockholm, where it runs until January (via Ekko). It's the first time we've really seen him in years, and I'll be honest, it's tough to watch.
When Agnes asks how he's doing, he doesn't hold back:
I have a disease I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.
He says he feels awful, that he's consumed by anxiety, and that he can barely get excited about anything anymore. This is a man who once made "Antichrist" while crippled by depression, and he sounds more defeated here than I've ever heard him.
Then comes more misery. Asked what he'll leave behind, Von Trier says there are a few films he's fond of and would like to leave. However, in the grand scheme of things, though, he says none of it really matters.
I find it hard to get excited [..] there are some of my films I care for deeply. Of course, I’d like those to be part of my legacy, but in the big picture of all things, with the pain and the trees dropping their seeds on soil, and so on and so forth, it means nothing.
None of it matters? "Breaking the Waves"? "Dogville"? "Melancholia"? “Dancer in the Dark”? The man is a legend.
That said, the old Von Trier is still in there, somewhere. He later calls the late painter Per Kirkeby an "asshole," laughing, over a nasty letter Kirkeby wrote him decades ago about one of his films. He tells a story about a childhood pet tortoise that he jokingly diagnoses with OCD.
The best moment is when Agnes points out that the artists in his exhibition, Munch and Strindberg among them, were all considered idiots in their day. Does he feel people have seen him as an idiot too? Yes, he says. And that, he figures, is exactly why he succeeded. He's never made a film for money, only because it had to be made a certain way.
As for his final film, "After,” based on everything that's been reported, it's been a strange ride. It hasn’t been shot, yet and that the script was only just finished in August. Physically, Jensen said at the time, Lars is affected, but his mind is fine.
Whether his health survives long enough to give us one last film is another question entirely. I truly hope it does. Cinema is better with Lars Von Trier in it, provocations and all.
Well, that was fast. Sacha Baron Cohen's “Ali G: Who Iz I?” will be streaming on Amazon Prime Video this Wednesday, October 28, just five days after its so-called theatrical release.