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Article: `MEDEA' IS A STARK PICTURE OF VON TRIER'S MORALITY
- Article from:
- The Boston Globe (Boston, MA)
- Article date:
- September 5, 2003
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2003 The Boston Globe. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Way back in 1987, the Dane of pain - or Lars von Trier to you -
made "Medea," Euripides' infanticide shocker, for Danish television.
Watching it now, after von Trier has reaped international plaudits
and caused a lot of trouble with "Breaking the Waves," "The Idiots,"
and "Dancer in the Dark," you can see on visceral display each theme -
romantic disillusionment and the ensuing martyrdom - and nearly every
visual pose the writer-director would later strike.
Set in mythic Nordic lairs and landscapes (sweaty caves and, even
better, lushly ominous mead owlands), the film features a story and
visual orchestration that have an undeniable heaven-hell split. If
you think you can smell brimstone ...