Hello, my name is Justin the Klu, and I'm here today with Will Sloan, and you're listening to the important cinema club.

And today we're talking about the bad boy of cinema himself, Lars von Trier.

That's right, the prankster, the edge lord. That's kind of how he, Lars von Trier. That's right.

The prankster, the edge lord.

That's kind of how he's perceived a little bit.

The shit disturber.

Yeah.

And I think that perception kind of gets in the way of appreciation of his work a little bit.

It certainly has for me at times in the past because he deals in oftentimes difficult

and transgressive subject matter, and he takes you to

emotional extremes. You know, a movie like Antichrist doesn't always feel like the safest place to be

because he has that kind of trickster reputation. Wouldn't you want to go towards that, though,

because you like those kind of provocations? I do. I do. I think over the years I've had to learn to sort of trust Lars von Trier. All he wants is a reaction out of you, whether it be good or bad. That's all he cares about. Is what people will often say. And sometimes he'll even say that about himself as well. I mean, I'm sure that's true. He definitely does have like a prankster side to him.

He certainly has a sense of humor, oftentimes a very like bitter and acidic one, you know,

oftentimes the one that like is really disorienting and upsetting, like in the house the Jack built,

for instance. But I do think like just watching some of his movies again this week, there's like

a great moral seriousness in them. And I this week there's like a great moral seriousness

in them and i also think there's like a consistent project happening in those movies like in a

lot of them you know it's not all it's not all his movies are exactly the same but like he's someone

who believes in evil as like a force that like manifests and like it's kind of always present.

It's always simmering underneath and just the right circumstances can allow it to unleash in

places and people you wouldn't expect it.

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