Film Still of The House that Jack Built © RR
The art of killing, according to Lars Von Trier
The ticket for the screening of The House That Jack Built sets the tone, referring in an inset to "Explicit violence – violent scenes". And so the rumours were right – the return of Lars Von Trier to Cannes is unlikely to not go unnoticed. Having won the Palme d’or in 2000 for Dancer in the Dark, and a double Grand Prix for Breaking the Waves (1996) and Europa (1991), the Danish filmmaker promises to scare the Croisette out of its wits with this film presented Out of Competition.
The House That Jack Built… or the art of killing. Lars Von Trier takes us in the footsteps of a serial killer in the United States in the 1970s. In murder after murder, Jack creates what he sees as works of art, and is now setting out to commit the most perfect murder of them all. The police is on his tracks. Jack takes risks, the pressure rises…
There's violence, but not only that. Flirting with a philosophical angle, Von Trier invites the spectator into the mind of his serial killer, a deeply disturbed man who we discover through his conversations with an unknown man called Verge, played by Bruno Ganz. But Jack, however dark he is, also has some moments of humour in store for us.
The director gave the leading role to Matt Dillon, well versed in playing troubled characters (a dangerous psychopath in A Kiss Before Dying, a racist police officer in Collision) and who has also excelled in comedies such as There's Something About Mary and In & Out.
Meanwhile the serial killer's victims is every bit as illustrious. Beginning with Uma Thurman, a major Cannes presence since Mad Dog Glory (1993) and Pulp Fiction (Palme d’or, 1994), as well as Riley Keough, the granddaughter of Elvis Presley, who shone in Mad Max: Fury Road, American Honey (Prix du Jury 2016) and also features in Competition this year in Under the Silver Lake by David Robert Mitchell.
