Epidemic

It's as if Lars von Trier equipped himself only with the tools of your everyday film student and set out to make a movie as self-important and cheaply made as possible. If the art of storytelling is akin to a disease, with a kind of mimetic dimension to its proliferation, it seems clear EPIDEMIC has infected very few, failing to expand beyond the confines of Lars von Trier's most adamant apologists.

The first of von Trier's masterpieces. The prominence of Tannhäuser on the soundtrack is not incidental in this reflection on the significance and place of the artist.

Von Trier at his most pretentious and self-indulgent, full of slightly inane, empty formalism and the sort of gimmicks that would rightfully be dismissed as film student-y contrivances under any normal circumstances (such as having the title superimposed over the left-hand corner of the screen for the duration of the film). Mostly it just feels dull and pointless, and anything potentially intriguing about it's meta/self-reflexive commentary on filmmaking just feels tired at this point.

What a chore to watch. The premise is pretty great, but every time the film seems to go somewhere interesting it quickly changes to some aimless or empty nonsense. I went from annoyed to apathetic to hopeful to disappointed more times than during my last prostate exam.

I'm a von Trier fan, but the appeal of this is lost on me. The story goes that this was made on a tiny budget as a bet so von Trier could get the cash needed to make Europa, and accordingly this film feels like Trier is just having a bit of a joke around. There are a few amusing, playful moments but for the most part I found it sloppy and uninteresting whilst displaying the title in the top left corner thoughout is absurd (supposedly costing more than the rest of the film combined).

um....wait what

The second film in Trier's Europe trilogy explores the madness of the creative process, and features one of the most disturbing sequences I've seen of late.

Deflecting the dreams I was about to have concerning functionalism, behaviorism and some other cold philosophical nonsense, does worth more than few points.

almost all von trier films are underrated in a sense, but there seems to be little correlation between their critical reception and how underrated they actually are. this one, concerning the parallels between art and real-life, and to the extent which the former might affect the latter, is certainly one of his most under-appreciated works. that final scene is terrifying.

Feels a bit sloppy and unfinished. And I know you like to hear women screaming in pain for 15 straight minutes, but don't assume your audience does.

I watched this movie during a Pandemic, and I got to say it really didn't add anything to the experience.

Contains the greatest writing montage yet. Also, young Udo Kier!

You could see the strokes of genius within von Trier's work, but he wasn't fully formed yet. I didn't like it a whole lot, but it did have some great images. I also really liked the final scene.

They scream!

57.500

the eternal themes of von trier like idealism, a sense of guiltyness, hedonism vs. ascetism are visible as clear as in his following movies and aesthetically a mixture between his "dogma" ambitions and his tarkovsky admirations which create some dreamlike scenes. (the scene in the bath with the glass reminded me of the glass in "stalker" and the tunnel scene reminded me of the long riding scene in "solaris")

Interesting more because what tell us about Von Trier cinema with some meta-cinema scenes than because it is actually interesting by itself.

I'm at a loss for words to descibe how much I despise this one. It's the worst.

I truly don't understand how a film can be so interesting conceptually and visually and still be so tedious to watch. Maybe this makes more sense in the context of his larger filmography but these first two of the trilogy have eluded me.

I really disliked this von Trier. It's the worst of the Europa trilogy by far and the worst von Trier I've seen to date by far (and the only one I actively disliked.) It has a kind of Kiarostamian structure with it being both a movie and a movie about the making of a movie at the same time, but I don't think it really works, and I was just kind of waiting for it to end by the time it finished. Interesting effort, but doesn't work.