© 2008 William Ahearn
Even for a film director, Lars von Trier is a pretty strange guy. Raised by “Jewish, nudist communists” according to his own biographical material, Trier felt robbed of the authority of love and that was augmented by the knowledge that the man he knew as his father wasn’t really his father. More on Trier can be found here and here.
That may or may not explain the environment of his 1984 film “The Element of Crime” that begins as a hypnosis interrogation by a psychiatrist or therapist. It’s never made clear in a film where not much is very clear yet is mostly interesting and oddly entertaining.
Fisher, an ex-cop is trying to solve the mystery of the murdered child lottery ticket sellers in a dystopic European city where the rain and the night never end. Guided by a book – The Element of Crime – written by his mentor Osborne and accompanied by a prostitute named Me Me Lai, Fisher pursues the killer, his past and what may remain of the future.
This is a strange film in the way that Peter Greenaway or David Lynch is considered strange by some filmgoers. The pursuit of the child killer is a poetic metaphor although to what end could be the subject of intense debate.
An intense, riveting and sometimes annoying film that is the strangest of all in this collection of serial killer movies.