Welcome

Lars Von Trier is a controversial, very well-known Danish writer and director who has been shocking and depressing audiences around the world for over thirty years with his disturbing cinematic efforts. I started my journey into his work with The House that Jack Built (2018), a serial killer drama starring Matt Dillon as the titular antagonist.

The boxing sequences are moving paintings; there are no wasted frames as we watch blood splatter across the mats in slow motion, or DeNiro or his foes dancing against the sweaty mist in the burning overhead lights. The fact that the film also serves as a period piece of sorts makes the utilization of the black and white imagery feel even more in place. It’s like John Huston made a boxing drama without the Hayes code.

The story follows Timmy Chamalet as Marty Mauser, a young Jewish man struggling to get by in early 1950s New York City as a hustling ping pong player. The opening act shows him overseas in London almost winning a major table tennis tournament, but losing embarrassingly in the final round to a stoic Japanese man with far superior skill than him.

As a self-proclaimed “film nerd”, how is it that I hadn’t seen the masterpiece that is La La Land (2016)? This is rhetorical, of course, as I would only have the true answer, and now having finally seen it, I can say that confidently: I am an asshole. I’m a big Damien Chazelle fan, especially after Whiplash (2014), and this being his sophomore project that almost won best picture, what the hell, man?

You’d think with all the glazing I’ve been doing of the man with the recent release of his generational masterpiece One Battle After Another (2025) that I would’ve seen this already. Uh, apparently not. There is so much I could say about this film that it deserves its own dedicated breakdown, when I have the time or energy. But until then, let me first say that this has some of the greatest dramatic performances of all time.