![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Dafoe, as always, is unnerving in his precise portrayal of a pedantic, domineering partner-come-shrink, with his angular proportions accentuated by Von Trier's shadowy photography. Gainsbourg is quite wonderful as the nameless heroine, or anti-heroine, whose already-cracked mental state is wholly shattered by the shock of her son's death (a horrendous incident under any circumstances, made all the more horrific here by von Trier's agonising set-up: the couple making love in one room, their child clambering to the window in another). On the contrary, for a hefty proportion of the film I found myself taken aback by just how delicate the whole thing was. Von Trier may have built his reputation in large part upon shock-jockerey, but he's under no circumstances a terrible director. Indeed, were the final controversy-courting scenes of the film ignored, or, as many may well-prefer, censored, we would be left with a rather beautiful, moving portrait of a relationship gone sour. ![]()
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