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Very disappointing...

Must See Movie...

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

As a Lars Von Trier fan I thought it was about time that I took a look at his first three feature film and bought the 'Europe' or 'E' trilogy on Amazon (other retailers are available thank you please). Although Lars himself isn't a particularly likable character, his films are wonderfully distinguishable. Breaking the Waves and Dancer in the Dark are amongst my all-time favourites, and I find myself consistently drawn to his 'Depression' trilogy which imagines Charlotte Gainsbourg in various levels of mental distress. After watching The Element of Crime, it's clear to see how far Lars has progressed as a filmmaker.The Element of Crime is like watching one of The Simpson's being pulped to death and put into a blender, an incoherent yellowy mess. It opens with some interesting surreal imagery depicting a horse being pulled out of some water. It left me hoping for a nightmarish Lynchian journey and whilst it was certainly odd, I found myself wanting to float to actual dream land rather than compelled to watch the one presented on screen.I couldn't tell you what the film was about. The back of the DVD calls it a neo-noir about a cop tracking down a serial killer and that's about the gist I got as well. Some English bloke drives around in a beaten-up tin car and pointlessly encounters people. The dialogue is completely illogical and never makes sense, this means that you can't feel any sort of connection to the characters or care about what they're doing. The film is entirely interested in bizarre visuals and fancy camera movements.There's no denying the strong sense of style. The cluttered mise-en-scene and strange lighting creates a stark atmosphere, however this simply isn't enough to sustain a 100 minute movie. I'm afraid to see what Epidemic and Europa now have to offer, I can only hope that they're an improvement on this boring mess.

Regarding from the Art perspective, with the quality criterias based on Art theory, this movie is by far on of the most intressting and inovative Film made ever. To say that we have to emphasize on the "Film as Art" as the art teoritician Rudolph Arnheim formulated and meaning Film as a complexitiy of Materials; Narration is only one part of it.

One detects the influence of many directors on the young Von Trier, many have already been mentioned (Tarkovsky, Hitchcock, Bergman, etc), but Tarkovsky looms the largest. The opening scene is a direct quote of 'Andrei Rublev', from there on in we are treated to ever increasing levels of Tarkovsky-esq rain, dripping faucets, people standing in water, until it becomes almost comical. The story is ostensibly your generic 'washed up cop pursuing a murder' mixed in with some hypnosis and color filters. The main character is apparently following a crime detection method outlined in a book (entitled 'Element of Crime', of course). This involves somehow 'becoming' the killer by recreating his steps, rather predictably, the line becomes blurred between cop and killer and then nothing seems to happen. The movie starts with good energy and atmosphere, but then fails to capitalize on the setup, scenes just seem to serve the purpose of allowing Lars to insert yet more Tarkovsky/noir references until it all starts to feel a little pointless. The movie then ambiguously grinds to a halt with no obvious conclusion (at least not one which was clear to me). One can't fault Von Trier's imagination, scenes often startle with their originality and composition, but it just starts to feel played out by the middle of the movie, the story is simply not strong enough to support the visuals. As a first movie, it's pretty damn good, but it just doesn't quite come off. Zentropa is a much better movie.

"Do you believe me? I'm in the middle of Europe screwing a Volkswagen 1200." A brilliantly esoteric pseudo-murder-mystery, The Element of Crime brings to mind the work of Paul Auster, stories like Ghosts and City of Glass. The fact that the entire film is communicated through the hypnosis-induced memories of a former detective leads to a breathtaking heightened reality that makes the film's dreamy visual sensibility irresistible. I don't know if it's thanks to Von Trier or Criterion (who deigned this movie one of the first entries into their Collection), but the print is GORGEOUS, and is damn near impossibly clean for a film made in 1984. Amadeus didn't look this good the day it came out.Like Auster's masterpieces, the film is technically about a murder, a detective named Fisher (Michael Elphick) returning to Europe from Cairo after a thirteen-year absence, come back to investigate a child killer named Harry Grey, as informed by his mentor Osborne (Esmond Knight), a mysterious prostitute named Kim (Me Me Lai) and antagonistic Chief of Police Kramer (Jerold Wells). He is telling all this from memory to a therapist (Ahmed El Shenawi), and the atmosphere is in kind.The film is completely shot in a burnt-umber tint, with occasional hints of blue coming through for minor things like police lights, and I can't be exact, but I would be willing to bet that the entire film is shot at nighttime, and at least 90% of it is during a severe rainstorm (Dark City, eat your heart out). It really is the doom-and-gloom special, and it's perfect for maintaining the mood the film is looking to put forth. Like Rose Hobart, it's the combination that makes all the difference. Alone, any of these elements (of crime?! No.) could have been comfortable, even soothing, but in tandem, they're haunting and unsettling, and kept me on the edge even at times when nothing of substance was occurring on screen.This is not to say that a lot of tangible things DO occur on screen. Anyone coming into The Element of Crime looking for a straightforward detective movie, where he follows the clues and solves the crime, is going to be sorely disappointed. This is why I'm glad I had read City of Glass previously. I realized straight away that this wasn't going to be ordinary or obvious. For Fisher, what originally begins as an investigation very quickly spirals down into a series of bizarre encounters and off-the-wall experiences, and he gets so deep into his desperate search and into his own psyche that he begins to lose his identity, and damn near his capacity for rational thought, and the results are spellbinding.Of course, considering the director, I should have realized substantially sooner than the start of the film that this wasn't going to be Agatha Christie ordinary. Ol' Lars doesn't do ordinary. Hell, even his most 'commercial' film (his office comedy The Boss of It All) is a long way from starring Will Smith, and his greatest films, like Dogville or Zentropa, are "off" just enough to be unique. I think this is the thing that attracts people who might not be aligned with Von Trier's world view, his cinematic approach, might find themselves lost in an area that they aren't comfortable with. For all you crazy kids who think you might be, give Von Trier's debut film a whirl. Be warned, though: It just might whirl you back.{Grade: 8.5/10 (B+) / #11 (of 26) of 1984}