The horror film, Epidemic, is the second in von Trier's Europa trilogy, which examines the chaos of Europe in the final decades of the twentieth century. As the filmmakers research and plot their next film about a plague that is descending on Europe, a second story thread follows a real-life epidemic that is breaking out, with epidemiologist Dr. Mesmer, also played by von Trier, investigating. Then the two stories begin to converge, and the essentially realistic storytelling becomes increasingly surreal.
The sequences of the filmmakers at work were shot by von Trier himself in grainy 16-millemeter. The story-within-a-story, shot more elegantly in 35-millemeter, utilizes the talents of cinematographer Henning Bendtsen, who had worked with Denmark's greatest filmmaker, Carl Theodor Dreyer. Bendsten's final film was the third in von Trier's trilogy, Europa. His elegant camerawork is among Epidemic's pleasures, along with the give-and-take between von Trier and Vorsel as they thrash out their story; a cameo by cult actor and future von Trier regular Udo Kier; and the escalating horror-movie tropes as the epidemic spreads, culminating in the over-the-top finale, to the music of Wagner's Tannhauser.
Von Trier was invited to show Epidemic at the Cannes Film Festival in 1987, where it was not well-received--much of the audience walked out. The film fared even worse at the box office, where it was a "fiscal fiasco." For awhile, von Trier was reduced to directing commercials. That kind of controversy has dogged von Trier's career. He has been called "arrogant," a "charlatan," even "the Antichrist of Celluloid." But he has persisted in his unique vision. Later, von Trier was one of the guiding lights behind the Dogme 95 cinema movement, which advocated the use of traditional filmmaking methods such as handheld cameras and natural lighting and shunned technology. In the decades since Epidemic, he has continued to make films that shock, outrage and impress critics and audiences.
Director: Lars von Trier
Producer: Jacob Eriksen
Screenplay: Lars von Trier, Niels Vorsel
Cinematography: Henning Bendtsen
Editor: Thomas Krag, Lars von Trier
Costume Design: Manon Rasmussen
Production Design: Soren Gam
Music: Peter Bach
Principal Cast: Lars von Trier (Lars, Dr. Mesmer), Niels Vorsel (Niels), Gitte Lind (Gitte), Claes Kastholm Hansen (Claes), Udo Kier (Udo), Susanne Ottesen (Susanne)
106 minutes
by Margarita Landazuri
