Lars Von Trier

Dancer in the Dark (New Line Platinum Series)

Masterpiece or masquerade? Lars von Trier's digicam musical split the critics in two when it debuted at Cannes in 2000. There were those who saw it as a cynical shock-opera from a manipulative charlatan, others wept openly at its scenes of raw emotion and heart-rending intensity. There is, however, no in-between. Dancer in the Dark is that rarest of creatures, a film that dares to push viewers to the limits of their feelings.

In her first and most probably last screen performance (she has foresworn acting after her bruising on-set rows with von Trier), brittle Icelandic chanteuse Björk plays Selma, a Czech immigrant living in a folksy American small town with her young son, Gene. Selma is going blind and so will Gene if she does not arrange an important operation for him. To cover the expense, Selma works every hour she can, cheating on her eye tests so she can keep working at the local factory long after her vision has become too unreliable to work safely. She sublets a house from a local cop, Bill (David Morse), and his wife, Linda (Cara Seymour). When nearly bankrupt Bill asks Selma for a loan, she refuses, but he later returns and steals the money, which she demands back in a furious confrontation. In the ensuing melee, Bill is fatally shot and Selma is arrested and put on trial. Will justice prevail?

Von Trier's passionate, provocative film runs all our emotional resources dry with suspense, giving us occasional flashes into Selma's gold heart and mind with superb song-and-dance numbers she conjures to banish the nightmare (Björk also wrote the score). At some two-and-a-half hours, it's not for lightweights, but anyone bored with today's smug, "ironic" cinema will relish this as an astonishing assault on the senses and a stark reminder of von Trier's uncompromising talent. --Damon Wise

Dogville

The latest galvanizing and controversial film from Lars von Trier (Dancer in the Dark, Breaking the Waves, The Kingdom), Dogville uses ingenious theatricality to tell the Depression-era story of Grace (Nicole Kidman, The Others), a beautiful fugitive who stumbles onto a tiny town in the Rocky Mountains. Spurred on by Tom (Paul Bettany, Master and Commander), who fancies himself the town's moral guide, the citizens of Dogville first resist Grace, then embrace her, then resent and torment her--little realizing they will pay a price for their selfish brutality. The town is indicated by fragments of building and chalk outlines on a soundstage floor, stylishly pointing to the movie's roots in classic plays (particularly Thornton Wilder's Our Town and Friedrich Durrenmatt's The Visit). Several critics have stridently attacked Dogville as anti-American, but the movie's dark, compelling view applies as easily to Rwanda, Bosnia, the Middle East, or pretty much anywhere in the world. Also featuring Lauren Bacall, Patricia Clarkson, Jeremy Davies, Stellan Skarsgârd, Chloe Sevigny, and many more. --Bret Fetzer

Manderlay

Liberation. Whether They Want It Or Not.From the director of Dancer In The Dark and Dogville comes Manderlay a moving and hard-hitting story about emancipation from slavery. Traveling across America with her father (Willem Dafoe) Grace (Bryce Dallas Howard) comes to discover the isolated plantation of Manderlay-a place whose inhabitants do not know that slavery has been abolished. Outraged to discover that the plantations owner Mam (Lauren Bacall) not only employs slaves but also refuses to open their eyes to the truth Grace fights against all odds to free the slaves of Manderlay. With a pure heart good intentions and the power of her father's lawyer and henchmen behind her Grace makes well-meaning but unfortunate ill-informed attempts to put things right.System Requirements:Running time: 133 MinutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: NR UPC: 796019795098 Manufacturer No: 79509

Cinema16: European Short Films

Cinema16 is pleased to announce the US release of Cinema16: European Short Films. This two-disc edition features previously unseen short films and early works by some of today's most notable filmmakers, as well as award-winning films from its rising stars. In addition to the films, the set contains over three hours of commentaries and a 16-page color booklet.

Film Listing:
1. The Man Without a Head- Juan Solanas (France)
2. Wasp- Andrea Arnold (United Kingdom)
3. Doodlebug- Christopher Nolan (United Kingdom)
4. World of Glory- Roy Andersson (Sweden)
5. Je T'aime John Wayne- Toby MacDonald (United Kingdom)
6. Gasman- Lynne Ramsay (Scotland)
7. Jabberwocky- Jan Svankmajer (Czech Republic)
8. Fierrot Le Pou- Matthieu Kassovitz (France)
9. Rabbit- Run Wrake (United Kingdom)
10. Copy Shop- Virgil Widrich (Austria)
11. Boy and Bicycle- Ridley Scott (United Kingdom)
12. Nocturne- Lars Von Trier (Denmark)
13. Before Dawn- Balint Kenyers (Hungary)
14. Election Night- Anders Thomas Jensen (Denmark)
15. Six Shooter- Martin McDonagh (Ireland)
16. The Opening Day of Close-Up- Nanni Moretti (Italy)

The Kingdom - Series One and Two

Includes one each of: The Kingdom Series 1 (KLF-DV-3044) and The Kingdom: Series 2 (KLF-DV-3093) Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS UPC: 741952315391 Manufacturer No: KLF-DV3153

Breaking the Waves

Set in an unmercifully rugged, coastal village in Scotland in the 1970s, this extraordinary film by Lars von Trier stars British actress Emily Watson as a barely contained naive named Bess, who holds regular conversations with God and whose pure and intensely personal faith is hardly tolerated by the gruesome Calvinist elders of her church. Bess marries an oil-rig worker (Stellan Skarsgard) and comes to believe that erotic discovery is a part of God's grand plan. But after her spouse is hurt in an accident, she decides that divine instruction is leading her toward the life of a prostitute--with disastrous but somehow beautiful results. Von Trier (The Kingdom) has made a wonderful, entirely unexpected, and rigorous work of discovery in this film, with a formal visual design that recalls classic films by Carl Theodor Dreyer and Robert Bresson. Watson is a phenomenon, her wide-eyed wonder at the world as God's handiwork a breathtaking portrayal of conviction. --Tom Keogh

When Bess, a naive young woman, marries Jan, a handsome oil-rig worker, she experiences passion and physical pleasure that she never imagined. Their bliss is cut short when an accident on the rig leaves Jan paralyzed. Believing he will never make love to Bess again, he tells her to take other lovers, convincing her that this will help his recovery. Bess is sent spiraling into a world of dark emotions she cannot understand

The Kingdom - Series Two

From acclaimed director Lars von Trier The Kingdom: Series Two delves deeper into the realm of the supernatural. Starting with the birth of "Little Brother" the son of a diabolical murderer and continuing with Doctor Helmer s plan to turn the staff into zombies the forces of evil are once again alive and well at Denmark s infamous Kingdom Hospital.System Requirements:Run Time: 291 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS UPC: 741952309390 Manufacturer No: KLF-DV3093

Medea

Lars von Trier claimed to be in psychic communication with the late Carl Theodor Dreyer (The Passion of Joan of Arc) on whose screenplay the film is based during the shooting. This brilliantly original exploration of the dark passions of a woman scorned unfolds in shimmering North Sea marshlands and gloomy subterranean passageways. Von Trier (Dancer in the Dark) has created a haunting work of mythic realism. Loosely adapted from the play by Euripides. "Exhilarating" (Chicago Reader). In Danish with English subtitles.System Requirements:Running Time: 76 mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: FOREIGN/LATIN UPC: 736899041724 Manufacturer No: DV67873

The Kingdom - Series One (Riget)

The Kingdom defies categorization. This cult Danish miniseries plays like a nightmarish cross between Twin Peaks and Chicago Hope as directed by David Cronenberg, and even that hardly captures the giddy absurdity of Lars von Trier's soap-opera-cum-horror-tale. The setting is a modern hospital built on a medieval graveyard, but the most terrifying ghosts belong not to ancient history but rather to the hospital's own dark past. An egotistical, self-righteous visiting Swedish doctor, who abhors the Danes and screams his outrage in nightly rants from the hospital roof, presides over this ensemble of eccentrics; but he's hardly the strangest this hospital has to offer. ER has nothing on this delirious madhouse, where haunted ambulances, a Masonic cult, a devil cabal, demons, ghosts, and a most mysterious pregnancy lurk in the fringes of more earthly (though equally bizarre) melodramas. Shooting in video with a bobbing handheld camera, von Trier creates an otherworldly atmosphere with the dimly lit corridors and bland, drained color schemes, set to an eerily sparse soundtrack of echoing hospital sounds and electronic wailings. The mix of deadpan hysteria and spooky ghost story concludes with the most outrageous cliffhanger put on film (to be continued in The Kingdom II). (The home video also includes closing comments by a smiling von Trier himself, unseen in the theatrical version.) Simply put, you've never seen anything quite like this. --Sean Axmaker

Acclaimed director Lars von Trier (Dogville, Dancer in the Dark) delves into the world of the supernatural with the acclaimed series that inspired Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital. At The Kingdom, Denmark's most technologically advanced hospital, a number of strange and otherworldly events begin to occur, much to the dismay of its doctors and patients. A ghostly ambulance appears and disappears, the voice of a little girl calls to a patient in an elevator shaft and a doctor's fetus begins growing at an alarming rate.

The Idiots