Art and the Landscape of Oppression in Lars Von Trier's Dystopic Duo: Melancholia and Antichrist

Indianapolis, IN

The Danish filmmaker Lars Von Trier creates films that question the effect of landscape on our minds and our relationships. Yet this cinematic exploration is not passive: it requires the viewer to enter the complex and harrowing narrative of his films. As a visual artist, it is the viewer's discomfort, surprise, recognition, and emotional response he needs to complete his work. Von Trier's dystopia plays out in the corruption of a traditional wedding in Melancholia. Amidst an apocalyptic landscape, a bride struggles with the power structures of a society in which her body becomes the locus of conflict. Antichrist reveals man and woman struggling in the primal existence of a barren "Eden," crafted as a landscape of fantasy and horror. Whether in Melancholia's title homage to John Everett Millais' Ophelia or Antichrist's visual mirroring of the hellish renaissance portraits of Bosch, Von Trier uses painterly reference to both inspire and construct shots and lend an air of mythic drama. Through these layers of fantasy and reality, Von Trier leads his audience to question who and what can be trusted, and learn how to progress within the complex, and often uncompromising landscape that is our own lives.