portaeporta-47060 Regarding from the Art perspective, with the quality criterias based on Art theory, this movie is by far on of the most intressting and inovative Film made ever. To say that we have to emphasize on the "Film as Art" as the art teoritician Rudolph Arnheim formulated and meaning Film as a complexitiy of Materials; Narration is only one part of it.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU The first thing to say concerns the atmosphere and the style of the film. It is bleak. It is dark. The only color is a few dots of red in a lot of black. We are always or nearly always underground, in tunnels, galleries, with running water, in sewers or equivalent places. It is always the night with just some red lights or fire cutting the darkness. Then when we are inside some buildings they are just like outside, in ruins, dirty, bleak, dark, bad hotels when it is not some kind of indescribable refuge for human rats. It is supposed to be Europe, some reduce it to Germany, after WW2 and it is just a vast wasteland abandoned to its own irreversible decay.The characters are two let's say ex-cops. One, Osborne, has fallen out of grace though he is the head and thinker of the film, and the other one, Fischer, is an ex-cop who ran away from police work to find some peace in Cairo. One day he accepts to be hypnotized by a doctor to try to find some solution to a case that is haunting him. This explains the blurred and fuzzy images, the lack of details and the concentration on desolation and a few details here and there that are hardly visible and recognizable or identifiable. The only interest of the film, apart from this dystopian if not suicidal vision of Europe, is that Osborne advocates a special method to deal with serial killers. You have to enter their minds and penetrate their motivations. Why do they do this, why do they do it like that, and thus understand every single detail of the pattern of serial killers because they follow patterns. This is profiling as it was at the time devised by the FBI in Quantico. But the film shows that the cop runs a risk: he will little by little get into the tracks if not the footsteps of the killer in order to stop him by knowing what his next crime will be. He thus becomes the serial killer, and not only in a way, in reality. He has to stop and he did stop just in time. I am not sure that the fact the prostitute he uses all along has had a child by the killer Harry Grey adds anything to the plot except that Fischer is thus put some more in the position and even place of the killer to make us even doubt whether he is not the killer himself. That's the five seconds of tragedy, or rather melodrama. Of course we do not really know what is the past, what is the hypnosis or what is a new trip to Europe. Chronology is not important at all.A film that is difficult to really penetrate because of this somber darkness that wraps everything, every detail in some unbearable horror. We are like repulsed by it more than in anyway attracted to it. Horrified no, terrified no, grossed out for sure.Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

akash_sebastian Lars von Trier's debut film is really remarkable. Monochromatic sepia tone, always night, water everywhere, voice-over throughout - all these elements help in creating an eerie dystopian atmosphere where a serial killer has been killing young girls. The lead protagonist Fisher is narrating the events to his therapist by recollecting his memories under hypnosis, so we can't be sure whether the place was actually like that, or this is how Fisher perceives and remembers it, or maybe the hypnosis has taken him into his memories in a dreamlike fashion. It doesn't really matter which one it is; it essentially creates an intriguing environment to investigate the murder case.How getting into the shoes and path of a serial killer can drive one mad is shown in an intriguing way, but I wish they had explored the motives and life of the killer a little more.von Trier shows such talent and promise in his first film itself. The case, the storytelling style, the cinematography, everything really works for this film and makes it one of a kind. I was transported into this dreamlike dystopian place trying to solve the murder along with Fisher, and the credit for that goes to von Trier. There are few brilliantly shot and uniquely lit scenes which are really captivating and memorable.

Camera Obscura Some called it the kick in the pants cinema needed, the savior of cinema and work of genius. Others find Lars von Trier's debut feature unbearably pretentious and consider this a beautiful but utterly empty work of art. Whatever your opinion will be after seeing this film, you're almost guaranteed to have strong feelings about it afterwards and will almost force you to reconsider the possibilities of the medium of film once again.Shot in English, ELEMENT OF CRIME was the first film in the Europe-trilogy, followed by EPIDEMIC (1987) and ZENTROPA (1991) and is best described as a futuristic neo-noir crime thriller. Von Trier never intended this film to be part of a trilogy. He only came up with that concept right before filming on ZENTROPA started. Actually, the three films are all very different and the only thing they have in common is a vaguely defined theme of "Europe" (practically all the films made in Europe deal with the subject in some way) and that they all start with the letter E. It's a practical joke to give his films some extra cachet, just as he's doing with his America-trilogies now. Set in the near future, the film gives an apocalyptic view of a decayed and demonic Europe, stunningly photographed in yellow and sepia colours with a vision of constant darkness (no ray of light whatsoever in the film), abandoned buildings and almost constant rain. Police detective Fisher is called in to solve a series of murders of small girls. In the process he gradually comes to realize that he must follow in the footsteps of the assumed murderer, finally completing the murderous pattern himself.Von Trier's passion about Europe is almost exclusively a deep and long-going fascination with Germany, the catalyst of modern history, that has been the defining factor in Europe's faith for most of the twentieth century. This film, as ZENTROPA and to a lesser extent EPIDEMIC, paint the apocalyptic picture of a world, resemblant of post-war Germany, with not just the physical damage involved, but with people who were emotionally battered as well. It's one thing to lose your belongings, even your relatives, but they didn't just lose everything they had, they lost morally as well. Von Trier presents to us a sort of neitherworld where morals are discarded and people are merely trying to survive.Not an easy film, to be sure. It was rewarded with a technical prize at Cannes in 1984, but was denied the grand jury prize, mainly because of Dirk Bogarde, who headed the jury, and reportedly was appalled by the film. He thought von Trier wanted to put an end to cinema and destroy the medium of film altogether. He threatened to pull out of the jury, if the film got any prizes. Apparently, they somehow managed to give the film this award for technical achievements. Relatively harmless and who would notice anyway? In interviews Von Trier blatantly claims that his film was historically by far the most important that year and this claim can arguably be protracted for a considerable longer period of time.Could this film be recommended for your enjoyment or regular entertainment value? No, it can't. But most movies can't. Historically however, this film is important, if there ever was one. This one of the few examples of a film that poses real questions about the way we judge film. Perhaps it's best enjoyed, and I don't want to sound pretentious myself here, by the more experienced moviegoer and for me the film worked best the second or third time I saw it. Upon it's first release in Denmark, half the people - even ardent cinema lovers - were running for the exits within the first half hour.To the horror of many and delight of some, it's already a staple for students at many film academies, and understandably so. The film is an innovative panache of cinematic styles and expressions, gorgeous sets, the yellow lighting (they used very powerful natrium lights) and stuffed with references and allusions to earlier cinema, like Andrei Tarkovsky and BLADE RUNNER. Any reference to Tarkovsky will probably have the other half still watching running for the exits as well, but cinematic literacy is easily misunderstood.Not my favorite or the most enjoyable in any sense, so one star off because of the silly detective story and the sometimes over-pretentiousness, otherwise a stunning work of visual art. I think everyone with an interest in cinema should see this film.Camera Obscura --- 9/10