Big Screen

Lars Von Trier Is The Best Ball-Banging Director In The World

Recently two films have shocked the world with graphic depictions of violence followed by acts of sex: Bob Dylan’s Beyond Here Lies Nothing and Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist. Coincidence or zeitgeist? You decide.

In Antichrist, the new Lars Von Trier movie, Willem Defoe’s balls are banged and then Charlotte Gainsbourg jerks him off until he cums blood. (Lane Brown describes it much “better” but I thought the quicker you read that without dwelling the better.) That’s a weird thing to do and also not very nice (at least the first half). Defending himself to an angry journalist Von Triers said, “It’s the hand of God… And I am the best film director in the world. I’m not sure if God is the best God in the world.” Needless to say, Maradona and the entire nation of Argentina objected.

Then there’s Bob Dylan whose video of a hot girl being beaten up (and also beating up) a balding man (played by Eliot Spitzer!) then kissing him passionately, was a partnership with the Independent Film Channel. Whatever happened to the Dylan from Nashville Skyline? That guy was so sweet!

So! Here’s the question: why all of a sudden are middle-aged to elderly white men interested in depicting women perpetrating violence against men and then either handjobbing or kissing them? Is it a function of the bleak economic landscape or perhaps, Kink’s MeninPain.com has finally penetrated popular culture.

Comments (AU Comments | US Comments)

  • DocNoodle

    @blix: Whereas Willem Dafoe getting Tchaikovsky-ed seems like it could be both, but is neither!

    DocNoodle

  • blix

    @DocNoodle: It was compelling and very hard to watch at the same time.

  • DocNoodle

    SICK: The life and Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist is both harder to watch than either of these (because, y'know, it's a documentary and the genital torture is, y'know, real) and more emotionally affecting and interesting.

    It also came out almost fourteen (!) years ago. Rent it tonight!

    DocNoodle

  • BookishLookish

    This is nothing new. I know a girl who makes a nice living administering weekly balzac torture to a few select gentlemen. That directors now have te "balls" to put this out there is concurrent with the mainstreaming of porn and the skewing of public taste. Also: filmmakers have forgotten how to tell stories.

  • Dickdogfood

    If you were really the best film director in the world, I wouldn't think you'd need to defend yourself to an angry journalist.

    Also: Godard is still alive.

  • badhatharry

    @badhatharry: I meant "then."

    badhatharry

  • depardoo

    It's about balls.

    depardoo

  • resipsaloquacious

    Best Director in the World?

    Michael Bay wants a word.

    resipsaloquacious

  • badhatharry

    If he's the best director in the world, than what is McG?

    badhatharry

  • propertius

    They just reversed the order of events from Dumont's Twenty-nine Palms.

  • Cutting Makes You Sexy

    Willem Defoe's balls are banged and then Charlotte Gainsbourg jerks him off until he cums blood.

    Man, that sentence sucked. I mean, well played, but fuck if I'm not having sex for a few days.

    Blah.

    Cutting Makes You Sexy

  • MrRewrite

    stop watching so much TV folks, it's cotton candy for the brain.

    MrRewrite

  • pinkiedeathhead

    It's those kinds of independent art films that keep me going to the big budget mainstream blockbusters. I can't help it. That freaky, creepy stuff just doesn't happen in STAR TREK.

    pinkiedeathhead

  • fuzzymuffins

    i still love the Jonas Ã…kerlund video for prodigy's 'smack my bitch up'....

    ultra violent first person evening of drugs and violence and strippers... to find out it's a woman at the end.

  • HollingsworthDevereaux

    No he did NOT ruin what is, arguably, Handel's most beautiful aria by playing it under this ball-crushing, ladyflower-excising trailer. Off to dark corner to cry now...

    HollingsworthDevereaux

  • Fry_Bread_Power

    @resipsaloquacious: Uwe Boll has something to say as well.

  • Swordfish

    Wasn't that already done in a James Bond film recently?

    In any case, would LvT please go away. Now.

    Swordfish

  • Clarissima

    If by "best" he means delusionally conceited; then yes-he's the best!

  • Clare

    @Swordfish: Yeah, but Daniel Craig is hot. That's what makes it different, I think.

  • WretchedGnu

    You can do whatever you want to a woman in the film -- no matter how condescending or violent -- as long as you first give her "agency" by having her kick someone's ass.

    WretchedGnu

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