A serial killer recounts his crimes in Lars Von Trier's The House That Jack Built.
Von Trier is an intriguing director and one who has seen a lot of controversy in his time due to some of the content in his films and comments made at the Cannes film festival in 2011. Prior to watching The House That Jack Built I had seen Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark and Dogville all of which I appreciated to some degree. Those films all had complex characters, fascinating plots and weren't afraid to shy away from more uncomfortable elements that their stories brought up.
The main issues I had with them was their pacing, which was always sluggish and took away from the impact of the overall narrative, especially in Dogville. The House That Jack Built has all the elements I enjoyed from previous Von Trier films, but managed to keep me engaged all the way through, which is why this is my favourite film of his so far.
I think part of the reason for that is that this is the most stylised film I've seen from Von Trier in terms of editing, music and composition of images. All of his previous work I had seen adhered to most of the aspects of the Dogme 95 movement he created with Thomas Vinterberg, which was all handheld camera, lack of music, lack of visual effects and props etc...
Here he seems to be far more experimental, and I think that benefits in the film's favour in terms of telling this sort of story.
The plot focuses around Jack, a serial killer, recounting his murders to a man named Verge, amongst which he recalls five specific 'incidents' which act as chapters to the story. This is an interesting framing device to revolve the film around and helps to break up the murders so the narrative doesn't get too repetitive.
Jack is portrayed by Matt Dillon who gives an excellent performance as the detached and emotionally blunt main character, whilst the veteran Bruno Ganz is very assured alongside him as Verge. Their conversations were the most engaging part of the narrative for me, as Verge criticises Jack's philosophy behind his murders as he treats them like art. It's a great battle of perspectives and one that I was always keen to get back to.
Jack and Verge are not shown onscreen for their discussion, which allows for relevant imagery to be shown to relate to what they are talking about. This often featured classical art in the form of paintings, statues and architecture, and even animation in some contexts to illustrate a point either one of the characters are making. At one point it even shows clips from Von Trier's previous films. This could be seen as the director grappling with his own art and its purpose.
In fact their back and forth was so gripping that I often wanted 'incidents' being shown to us to end so we could get back to the pair. However, this only lasted for the first two 'incidents' as the other three were far more impactful.
The fourth 'incident' in particular was incredibly shocking. It mainly features just Jack and Jacqueline (Riley Keough). It relies on the performances of Dillon and Keough and they really deliver on selling the situation. The dialogue and how the situation progresses is genuinely chilling and hard to watch.
It all leads up to an epilogue which takes heavy inspiration from Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy which demonstrates some very striking imagery.
I can understand why this sort of film would be annoying to watch though, as the themes here are discussed in very literal terms and the overall nihilism of the narrative could become grating. A 152 minute runtime could also be seen as rather daunting given the subject matter, but all these aspects worked for me rather well.
Final Verdict
The House That Jack Built will most likely be an acquired taste for many viewers, but if you are already a fan of Von Trier's work it may be right up your alley.
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