Dogville (2003)

Had I paid more attention, I would not have chased the weirdest David Lynch movie I've seen with a Lars von Trier piece. Still, this was one of those culturally significant pictures I'd been putting off for some time.

In what might be the '30s, a stranger named Grace (Nicole Kidman) comes to a remote Colorado town, planning to cross the nearby mountain until local would-be writer Tom (Paul Bettany) sees her and advises against it. Not knowing a better way to elude a gang looking for her, she begs sanctuary. Tom talks all his skeptical neighbors into keeping mum for a period and then deciding whether to send her away. Grace endears herself to them with chores, and for a while, she and the town brighten up each other. But when authorities under the gang's sway announce that she's wanted for crimes, although she couldn't possibly have committed them, the townsfolk become less content with lying to the law and subsequently make life increasingly hard for Grace.

Europa (1991)

Not to be confused with the previous year's Europa Europa, this film went by Zentropa (the name of a fictitious railroad company) in the U.S. Director Lars von Trier must have been arrogant even back then, because he flipped off the Palme d'Or judges for not awarding it. Still, it is far more popular today than the winner, Wild at Heart. I decided to see why.

Leopold (Jean-Marc Barr), a young American of German descent, decides to show some mercy to Germany in the months after World War II by taking a job there as a sleeping car conductor for Zentropa, where his uncle (Ernst-Hugo Järegård) works. From the train windows, he sees that the nation is hardly in peacetime as the U.S. military clashes with the "Werewolf" resistance. It turns out that the inside of a train isn't much better for neutrality, as friendly folks, including a love interest (Barbara Sukowa), seek to involve him in their sordid plans with or without his knowledge or consent.

Breaking the Waves (1996)

I had been content to let Dancer in the Dark (2000) be my only exposure to Lars von Trier. Oh, I liked it well, but he has a reputation for further darkness. More importantly, he has claimed to direct under God's direction and thus be the greatest director in the world. That level of arrogance deserves scorn. Nevertheless, a Meetup group invited me to this installment of a '90s film festival, and I got curious. Now I know it to be part of a loosely defined series with DitD, called the Golden Heart Trilogy. (The Idiots [1998] gets a middling reception.)

In rural '70s Scotland, young Bess (Emily Watson) marries foreign atheist Jan (Stellan Skarsgård) despite the protests of her church elders and family, which stem in part from her past breakdowns -- possibly bipolar. She clearly didn't put much thought into it, because she feels horrible as soon as he returns to his job on an oil rig. She appears to converse with God (hmm, see the previous paragraph), closing her eyes to speak His words to herself. When a rig accident leaves Jan paralyzed and in otherwise critical condition, Bess blames her selfish wish to have him back. To make him not just feel better but recover, she indulges his wishes that she commit adultery and tell him the dirty details.