Latest / The Kulturecast / "Don't look at the acts, look at the works."

Transcript

"Don't look at the acts, look at the works." · The Kulturecast

0:04
Speaker 1: Weird way.
0:42
Speaker 2: Your house has a fine little house.
0:44
Speaker 3: Jack, Are you allowed to speak along the way? I
0:48
was thinking there might be rules.
0:50
Speaker 2: Let me put it this way, very if you make
0:52
it all the way without uttering a word, but to
0:56
carry on merrily. Just don't believe you're going to tell
0:59
me something I haven't done it before.
1:15
Speaker 4: I was maybe a mistake, maybe a mistake me getting
1:20
in this car with you. You might as well be
1:22
a serial killer. Sorry, but you do kind of look
1:27
like one.
2:00
Speaker 3: I feel like screaming, and I'm taking a shot.
2:05
Speaker 5: Nobody.
2:06
Speaker 6: What what if I take live in the vamp?
2:21
Speaker 5: Please, sir, I'd be a bad guy if I said no.
2:27
Speaker 3: Some people claim that the atrocities we commit in our
2:30
fiction are those inner desires which we cannot commit in
2:33
our controlled civilization, so they are expressed instead through our art.
2:38
Speaker 1: I don't agree.
2:39
Speaker 5: I believe heaven and Hell are one and the same.
2:43
Speaker 3: The soul belongs to Heaven and the body to Hell.
2:55
When I think about all the things I've done in
2:57
my life without any way resulting.
2:59
Speaker 1: In so what an uplifting and joyous occasion We found
3:21
ourselves here on this episode of the Culture Cast to
3:24
talk about a film that deserves to be in the
3:27
American Film Registry for the most uplifting films ever seen
3:34
by people in a movie theater. I would also think
3:38
in terms of misogyny, these are the least misogynistic films
3:41
I've ever seen. Nothing about them would be characterized as
3:46
misogynistic adult Yeah no, but serial killers? Am I right? Am?
3:50
Speaker 5: I right? I do nothing but a past of hope
3:53
this month for you.
3:53
Speaker 1: I know, my god, dude. Well, and I was going
3:55
to say, you know, in twenty twenty five, you know,
3:59
a post kind of the the big true crime push
4:02
that I think we had in the podcast industry for
4:05
about Oh, I don't know, nah, I'm talking about the
4:10
podcast industry specific No, I get it.
4:12
Speaker 5: Yeah.
4:13
Speaker 1: I would say it's been like five six years of
4:15
like it being and it's like, I don't know not
4:17
to say that, like true crime isn't at its zenith,
4:20
but I think obviously that there's only a certain amount
4:22
of room at the top for the big boys of
4:26
a podcast, and true crime is such a crowded space
4:30
that there are plenty of big boys and girls to
4:33
be doing that.
4:34
Speaker 5: Still.
4:35
Speaker 1: I used to have a true crime paranormal podcast. It
4:38
is on hiatus I did not like the true crime
4:41
aspect of it because after a while, real life true
4:44
crime stuff is what's the word, Oh, it's really depressing,
4:48
and sure is it starts to wear on you, and
4:51
it starts to really drain you. And I don't know,
4:54
it's just it's a lot and that.
4:56
Speaker 5: You know.
4:56
Speaker 1: That's the thing about any sort of like true crime
4:59
movie or true crime TV show is I'm much more
5:03
interested in watching something that's inspired by real people less
5:08
something that's based on someone directly. Basing things on someone directly,
5:13
I think also opens up the creators and the content itself,
5:19
though this is less the problem of the content and
5:21
more the problem of the creators. I think when you
5:23
make something based on a real case, you run the
5:27
risk of the person who committed the crimes getting more
5:31
attention than the victims. And I think that every time,
5:36
sans one or two specific cases that I can think of,
5:40
in the last couple of years, for the most part,
5:43
that has been the case is that true crime things
5:46
about serial killers tend to be poorly handled because I'm
5:50
thinking of someone like Dahmer or you know, I can
5:53
only imagine what that new ed Geen show that's coming
5:56
out is going to do, but it really deifies the
6:00
killers in a way that is slightly uncomfortable.
6:04
Speaker 4: Now.
6:04
Speaker 1: Look, I have a Jeffrey Dahmer enamel pin on my backpack.
6:07
I bought it on ironically at a like I would say,
6:11
like a morbid curio shop when I was visiting friend
6:14
of the podcast just byed back in the before Times.
6:17
And I have several air In Hernandez signed rookie cards
6:20
from back in his rookie season. Now, those were not
6:22
purchased because of Aaron Hernandez. Those were pulled out of
6:26
a pack of cards when he was a rookie before
6:29
he started you know killing well, well, no, I well, yeah,
6:33
I guess so technically, Well, I was gonna say technically
6:35
because I don't I don't know. I don't think kill well.
6:38
I don't think he killed anybody in college. But he
6:40
was definitely like not not not had a good behaf allegedly, Yeah,
6:44
he was not on his best behavior. Let's just put
6:46
it that way. So I am. I am not going
6:49
to sit here and judge everyone about you know, well,
6:52
let's talk about you know, true crime is so terrible,
6:55
we're not going to cover it. I just think for me,
6:57
true crime is a really slipper slope because if you
7:01
don't cover it the right way, you leave yourself open
7:04
to I even justifiable judgment on why are you doing
7:09
this if you're not doing this to honor the victim?
7:12
And if you say, hey, I'm not doing this honor
7:14
the victims, Okay, fine, got it? Like then okay, then
7:17
then we're on the same page. But I hate this
7:19
idea of like, well, we're trying to honor the victims.
7:22
So the Dahmer Show is not going to be about him,
7:24
and it's like, but but it was.
7:26
Speaker 5: It's also called the show.
7:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's also it's also called Dahmer Monster or whatever
7:31
the fuck it's called. Like, you can tell me whatever
7:34
you like, but that show is still a Jeffrey Dahmer show.
7:37
It still glorifies and deifies Jeffrey Dahmer. So all that
7:40
to say, I'm much more interested in watching a movie
7:43
about a fake serial killer inspired by real serial killers,
7:48
because The House that Jack Bilt is a movie inspired
7:51
by several real people, not any one person specifically, though
7:56
I guess you could make the case that there is
7:58
one person that it's inspired by more than others, I guess,
8:01
But all of that to say, I'm much more engaged
8:04
and interested in a movie that's talking about a fake
8:06
serial killer ad nauseum than I ever would be sitting
8:10
with Evan Peters playing Jeffrey Dahmer for ten fucking hours
8:14
or whatever scene amounts of time that was on top
8:17
of everything else, because I don't need to spend that
8:19
much time with Evan Peters as Jeffrey Dahmer. Nobody does.
8:22
Speaker 5: I don't know that anybody would want to spend that
8:23
much time with Evan Peters just being himself.
8:26
Speaker 1: Emma Roberts maybe, no, maybe, but from the sounds of it,
8:29
there was a volatile relationship between the two, right, well,
8:32
you know what they say. Eric Roberts not exactly known
8:35
for being a stable dude, so he's not I mean he,
8:39
I mean like, and then Emma Roberts seems to have like,
8:41
I don't know, it's weird. Julia Roberts seems to be
8:43
the only one who can keep it together best I
8:46
can tell you.
8:47
Speaker 5: Never looked at Eric Roberts IMDb and see may credits.
8:50
He has. It's a lot. It is like maybe the
8:53
highest number I've ever seen.
8:55
Speaker 1: He's like James Hong he's just like in everything, he's
8:57
like white James Hong.
8:59
Speaker 5: I think he has more than James Hunky. Like in
9:02
just twenty fifteen he had like fifty something credits.
9:06
Speaker 1: Well, when you show up just set for five minutes
9:08
and you say five lines and you get paid SAG minimum.
9:11
Speaker 5: Okay, yeah, yeah, a.
9:12
Speaker 1: Credit is a credit is a credit.
9:14
Speaker 5: Yeah.
9:14
Speaker 1: So Ryan, Ryan Verel of Disconnected somewhat's favorite production all
9:19
around good dude. The likes fucked up shit serial killer stuff.
9:23
You know, so do I? I mean, I consider myself
9:25
a good dude, but doesn't necessarily mean I'm not entranced
9:29
by the demented and the profane. So Ryan, I'm so
9:33
very curious because I think we're gonna have a lot
9:35
to talk about with the house that Jack built, and
9:37
I'm really excited to talk about it with you. But
9:39
I am so unbelievably curious as to why did you
9:44
pick it specifically because this is a movie that came out.
9:47
It's not that it didn't get fan fair, but it
9:48
was like twenty nineteen seems so pastoral now, like people
9:52
were upset about this movie, like really like man, like
9:56
this movie doesn't even like there are parts of this
9:57
movie that I find to be deeply un settling and
10:01
like disgusting, but like still kind of not that bad
10:06
in the scheme of like the things that I've even
10:09
seen on like real true crime shows talking about real
10:13
true crime and then again to go back to something
10:15
like the Damer or the Menendez or the upcoming ed
10:18
Geen show, Like those things are pretty graphic like and
10:22
and they're allowed to be. They're unrated for the most part.
10:24
They're on fucking Netflix, Like you do, we know what
10:26
we want. We have hold them to no advertisers, like, hey,
10:29
they don't even have to release it in a theater
10:31
the MPAA. We just circumvent them completely. So so I
10:34
am curious, Ryan, why oh why are we talking about
10:37
the house that Jack?
10:38
Speaker 5: I mean, I don't even know. Like I kind of
10:40
wanted to leave that pregnant pause there for a moment,
10:42
because no matter what you say after that question, some
10:46
people are gonna look at the answer in a weird
10:48
way because is it's morbid curiosity? For some people, that's
10:52
too far? Is it infatuation with how mental illness affects people?
10:56
Because for some people that's too far, is it, you know,
11:00
just the overall desire to push you out of your
11:03
comfort zone because some people will say that's too far, Like,
11:06
no matter what the reason is, the reality behind it
11:10
is I like talking about movies with my dearest friend,
11:13
mister Christashu, and this is such a complex, deeply weird
11:19
story to talk about on every like every sociopathical level
11:25
that you can dissect this that we could record eight
11:29
different episodes about this movie and none of them would
11:31
even be remotely similar, because you can cover everything, and
11:36
I don't know, like I really feel like, you know,
11:39
our lead in this is incredible and was forced to
11:43
do some really fucked up crazy things. Some of the
11:47
random other actors that we get in this are like,
11:50
what are you doing in this? I don't know why
11:52
you're here, but okay, that's cool. And then the ending
11:55
of this deserves like three episodes on its own. I mean,
11:58
it's the religious overtones of it all has to lead somewhere,
12:04
and even though we all know where the path is going,
12:06
it just has to explode in this fiery existential dread
12:11
that you know is coming, even though it's somebody that
12:13
you see is despicable for so long. So yeah, I
12:16
just I truly see this movie as like a flagrant
12:20
work of art, And I choose that word carefully because
12:23
a lot of this movie is flagrant in how they
12:26
do things probably should not be in a film like that.
12:29
But when you piece it all together, it is kind
12:31
of a beautiful dissection of the mind done by a
12:36
master craftsman and pulling out performances, specifically for Matt Dylon,
12:41
that are just way beyond type and way beyond what
12:46
we thought we could ever get from Matt Dylon. So
12:49
I truly love this movie. I think it is a
12:51
modern masterpiece. It is also a movie that most people
12:55
probably should not watch.
12:56
Speaker 1: That is the thing that I'm glad you said, because
12:59
that's what I wanted to lead with. This movie is
13:02
so fucking far from the not from everybody camp like
13:06
it is. It's it to say it's not for everybody,
13:09
is like, have you seen the movie? Like, it's not
13:12
for ninety nine percent of the people that are film going, right,
13:15
It's like, most people have never heard of this. And
13:17
then and then if you go further into the if
13:20
you go from the percentage of people that haven't seen it,
13:22
So we take those people out and we go to
13:23
the people that have heard of it. How many of
13:25
the people that have heard of it have any interest
13:27
in watching it, that's a small number. Like Larsvontreer, his
13:31
films are not known for being easy. His films are
13:34
not known for being approachable. If anything, his films are
13:36
known for being well, exactly like this one, pretty profane,
13:42
pretty I would say transgressive in it. And you know what,
13:46
And here's the thing. Transgressive art, I think, in a
13:49
lot of ways is for me. The term transgressive is
13:53
just a way of making a morality statement on progressive art.
13:58
Because this is rather progressive conversation this movie is having.
14:01
It's very progressive, but because of how much it pushes
14:05
the envelope it is it is transgressive. It is you know,
14:09
I mean insanely transgressive. It's transgressive in a way that
14:12
most things aren't unless we're talking about latters on Treer film.
14:15
So and that's the thing about this movie is to
14:17
your point, like it's it's a it is a transgressive
14:19
And I would say flagrant is a is A is
14:21
a interesting way of putting it. A flagrant use of
14:24
the medium. To again, you know, it is a character study.
14:28
It is the the the entire premise is what if
14:31
a serial killer went on Dante's journey, and and and
14:35
it's not even that so much, because it's really the
14:39
recontextualizing of the Dante's story. It's the reusing of the
14:42
Dante's story in a new fashion. I mean, how many
14:46
times have we seen films and books reuse the Odyssey
14:50
or the framing device of the Odyssey in and then
14:53
use that as a jumping point for their own story.
14:55
I mean, oh, brother, where art that comes to mind?
14:57
That's that's the Odyssey story. I mean again, and then
15:00
you have like literal cyclopses in that with the John
15:03
Goodman one eyed man character, like there, I mean, there
15:06
are literal analogs in those stories. And so here we
15:10
have again I would describe this movie to someone is
15:14
a one sentence as a serial killer's journey into Hell.
15:19
That's what it is, and like and a look at
15:21
what makes a serial killer tick by his own word,
15:25
and like none of that really should sound pleasant to anybody,
15:28
but it should sound interesting. And I again, like, I think,
15:32
if you're someone going into this movie, you know why
15:34
you're here. And so Lars won Trier doesn't have to
15:37
get you through the door, because I think getting you
15:39
through the door is on you, you know what I mean,
15:42
Like there's nothing he can do to get you through
15:43
the door with this movie, Like you either are on
15:46
board with what this is or not. This isn't fucking
15:48
fantastic for this isn't a movie that like, oh, I'm
15:51
just gonna go see it on the weekend with some
15:52
family members and you're like, we're looking for a thing
15:54
to do on a Sunday, Like that's not a thing.
15:57
Family's not going And if your family went to see
15:59
the house that Jack built together, Wow, I really like,
16:03
what in God's name are we doing here?
16:05
Speaker 5: First date movie?
16:07
Speaker 1: There'd be a worse first date movie. Is there a
16:10
worse first date movie than this one? Maybe the Sorrow
16:13
and the Pity, the like five hour film about the Holocaust?
16:16
Speaker 5: Maybe even then, like there's there would be a lot
16:20
to debate, Yeah boy.
16:21
Speaker 1: This Yeah, So all that to say, this is one
16:24
of those movies that you are here intentionally, You didn't
16:28
wander in here. So it almost feels a little passe
16:32
to complain about how offensive this movie is, because yeah,
16:35
like we're here for that, Like we're here for that intentionally.
16:39
If you want a movie about a serial killer admitting
16:42
his crimes, justifying his crimes, glorifying his crimes to Dante's Virgil.
16:48
And you think that's somehow not going to be extremely transgressive,
16:53
possibly upsetting in gory, and definitely something that's going to
16:57
leave you like with questions at the end, Then you've
17:00
come to the right place. Otherwise this is not a
17:02
movie for you. This is not a movie for you. Like,
17:04
if you're still sitting here wondering if you should watch
17:07
the movie, that's all I can give you in terms
17:09
of like guidance anymore. Like you've had also optunity to
17:12
leave at this point.
17:13
Speaker 5: Could you imagine knowing that going into it and then
17:16
afterwards going man, Lars von Trier really does not treat women?
17:20
Speaker 1: Well, Yeah, this film is so insanely massage and shit.
17:23
Speaker 5: That is the whole point. Like this guy is a
17:26
terrible piece of crap. That is the point.
17:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's nothing redeemable about him, which I think also,
17:33
and I'm curious your thoughts on this, just kind of
17:35
broadly as an American Western filmgoer, But I would say
17:39
American filmgoer having a film about a character that is
17:44
hard too, if not impossible to root for, is still
17:47
challenging for American aunings. Oh, I don't know why why.
17:50
I don't know why. I mean, we've had the Sopranos
17:52
and Breaking Bad and all these anti hero TV shows,
17:56
so I don't understand why people are having a hard
17:57
time getting on board. But like this movie, there's nothing
18:00
redeemable about him whatsoever. Like he's mildly it's mildly sympathetic
18:04
for like thirty second and that's about it. But that's
18:07
he's about as sympathetic as any serial killer is, where
18:10
it's like, yes, at one point in your life you
18:12
were not fucked up. We can all concede that. However,
18:16
that is so not the case anymore. You are so
18:19
far from that now that it is almost not even
18:21
worth having that conversation anymore because that person and you
18:25
are miles apart. There is a ocean separating. So there's
18:28
nothing redeemable about him at all. Like I you're if
18:32
you have a problem with that, you're not gonna like
18:33
this movie right on the face of it.
18:35
Speaker 5: I don't think redeemability is the question on this one.
18:39
I think everybody walking away knows that they're not redeemable.
18:42
And that's even true for somebody like Tony soprano who
18:44
even shows moments of humanity quite often literally like in
18:48
every single episode. Probably, But I think we have a
18:51
bigger problem with just I don't know, you'd have to
18:54
put it on a scale, of course, but like true likability,
18:58
and it's not it's not deemability, because many people cannot
19:02
be redeemed for everything that they've done. But then you'd
19:05
look at other random movies, and this is a very
19:07
specific reference, so I apologize if you've not seen this one.
19:10
But the big one that gets to me over the
19:12
last few years is the movie dead Stream. Dead Stream
19:15
is like a fan footage screen life type of movie,
19:18
and the gentleman that is going to this haunted house
19:21
he is an insufferable prick. He clearly has like very
19:26
bad motives. He doesn't have a good personality. He is
19:29
awful while he's on screen. And I adored that movie,
19:32
but so many people walked out of it and literally,
19:35
like reviews you would read, I couldn't get into this
19:38
movie because I didn't like the main character. You're not
19:40
supposed to the whole point of the movie is that
19:43
he's an awful person going into an unsavable situation and
19:46
then bad things happened to him. He's not an anti hero,
19:50
he's just unlikable. There's been a handful like that over
19:53
the last few years that have gotten bad reviews because
19:55
people don't understand you're not always meant to associate with
19:59
the main character. And the problem is, if you watch
20:02
the house that Jack built, and if you associate with
20:04
the main character, you should probably be under a seventy
20:07
two hour hold at least until we can figure what's out.
20:10
What's going on?
20:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's yeah, that's I mean, that's you know. Again,
20:15
just to I think, to transition away from what the
20:18
expectation should be with watching this movie. I think if
20:20
you watch this movie, you know what you're getting yourself into.
20:22
And I think that I think that Lars von Truer
20:26
is a challenging filmmaker, and I think Lars Wontruer is
20:28
a challenging filmmaker the way Tarantino or Christopher Nolan or
20:35
Dnie Villeneuve, though I think daneven Live probably closer than
20:38
the other two to actually being challenging filmmakers that have
20:42
something to say that is questioning the human condition or
20:46
adding a conversation to the human condition. And I think
20:50
that For me, the house that Jack built is a
20:52
very interesting conversation on the human condition because it is
20:56
a human condition that, to your point, very little, if
21:00
if any of us, can have any sort of like
21:02
frame of relatability too, because none of neither one of
21:06
us have murdered anyone best I know, and to be fair,
21:11
you wouldn't admit it even if.
21:12
Speaker 5: You had not hear anything, not on the recording.
21:14
Speaker 1: Not on the recording. So it's one of those things
21:17
where you know, you kind of need to be okay
21:21
with this kind of character to begin with, and if
21:25
you're not okay with this kind of character, avoid this
21:27
movie at all costs. But if you are here for
21:29
the ride, then this movie, I think yields in terms
21:33
of what you would be going into this movie for
21:35
I think this movie gives you what you're expecting and
21:38
then some because it does have something to say about
21:41
the human condition. It does have something to say I
21:44
think interestingly about serial killers, and I think for me
21:48
it is one of the best serial killer things out
21:50
there because it is doing something that most, if not all,
21:54
of the serial killer things are doing, which is looking
21:57
at the situation and going, look, the serial killer is
22:00
a monster. We all know that we're all agreeing that's
22:03
a conceit. We have to agree serial killer's a monster.
22:06
But why why? I want to know why? I don't
22:10
And if you're an and if you're someone watching this,
22:12
if you're part of the audience of this film, you're
22:13
here because you have wondered that same question. And so
22:17
I think the film goes a long way as to
22:19
giving us reasons as to why Jack is the way
22:23
that he is. I don't know if you can trust
22:24
a word that this guy says, because he is a
22:26
serial killer who is so narcissistic and caught up in
22:29
his own shit that he's just you know, I mean again,
22:33
like he is motivated and drawn to and created out
22:39
of his urges. His urges like control him. And that
22:43
is a thing that I think. The compulsions of the
22:46
serial killer is such a big part of this movie,
22:48
and I really appreciate that about it. It's like we
22:51
get to see how the serial killer feels about the
22:54
compulsions that we know serial killers have, not all of them,
22:58
but this guy does. And I love that this movie,
23:01
Like I said, it's it's multifaceted. And the thing about
23:04
the movie that also I think really works is it's
23:06
there's not a lot of through line, and that's intentional,
23:10
and I feel like there was never going to be
23:12
an easy way to tell this story anyway other than
23:15
this one, which is essentially to vignette everything and then
23:19
have there be essentially interstitial dialogue and narration. And I
23:24
think that it works immensely well. But again, you have
23:27
to be willing to get on board with the movie
23:30
immediately because it's not even interested in telling a narratively
23:34
straightforward story either.
23:36
Speaker 5: No, not even a little bit. And that's on top
23:39
of that, you have to be willing to sit with
23:41
it afterwards, because this is this is the type of
23:44
movie that you don't, you know, rate on letterbox twhile
23:48
sitting in the theater as the credits roll. This is
23:51
one that, like two days later, you go, I simultaneously
23:55
want to watch it again, but also never get out
23:57
of bed again. And both of those things mean this
24:00
movie is complex and heavy and lends to so much
24:06
more than a three sentence letterbox review could ever possibly
24:11
speak about what you're feeling.
24:12
Speaker 1: So let's talk about let's just kind of talk about
24:15
some of the scenes in the movies. So the film
24:17
is presented in a vignette form, and so the framing
24:20
device is a story being recounted to Virgil. Yes, Virgil
24:25
from Dante's Inferno. Why how is never explained. It doesn't
24:31
need to be explained. It would seem that Virgil is
24:34
just a part of the world, and in Virgil being
24:37
a part of the world, Virgil exists for people in
24:40
the world that need guidance or people in the world
24:43
that need farying. I partially find and this is just me.
24:49
I don't know how you feel about this, not to
24:51
jump to the ending immediately, but to talk to the
24:52
Virgil of it all. I do think that Virgil has
24:56
no problem with watching Jack fall to his damn at
25:00
the end of the movie. If not, that was the
25:02
point of Virgil taking him all the way to that
25:04
bridge to go, hey, look see on the other side,
25:06
you could get across, and we can't do that anymore.
25:10
So now we're just going to turn around and leave.
25:12
And it's like Virgil, as a character who's spent two
25:14
and a half hours with our main character, knows that
25:17
this guy will not be able to pass up an
25:19
opportunity to try and save his soul one more time.
25:23
And Virgil takes him all the way to the precipice.
25:25
Speaker 5: And goes, oh, look, go for just peer in.
25:27
Speaker 1: But that's the thing, because like the whole purpose of
25:29
the movie is once again to give this guy his
25:32
just deserts. And how do we go about doing that? Well,
25:35
he's got to make his own He's making his own bed,
25:37
and he's lying. The title the House that Jack built,
25:40
it does strike me as a play on you know,
25:42
make your you know, you have to lie in the
25:44
bed that you make. Like a lot of ways, the
25:46
house that Jack built, like the house that he's building,
25:48
is his one way ticket to hell, and that is
25:51
something that he is not okay with because he sees
25:54
himself as an artist, which I think is the meta
25:56
which I love the metatextual nature of the film because
25:59
the meta, the message of the film is the art.
26:02
The art creation process is you know, it's killer. I
26:06
guess it's like creation and destruction at the same time.
26:10
To create something is also to destroy because you know,
26:14
if you're creating a film, you at this at the end,
26:16
you have to quote destroy it or end it. There
26:19
is a finite end.
26:20
Speaker 5: To these things.
26:21
Speaker 1: And I love the idea of creating a story to
26:27
have a discussion about something that is seems like it
26:30
would be impossible to have a discussion about any other way.
26:33
I really am racking my brain on how to do
26:36
a film like this any other way, and I'm not
26:40
sure that. I'm not sure that you could. I think
26:42
that the only way you could do a film like
26:44
this is by having the serial killer talk directly to
26:47
the audience. I don't think, because I think otherwise there's
26:49
just you don't get the interior monologue, which is so important,
26:53
the serial killer being honest as much as the serial
26:56
killer can be. And that's the other thing about his
26:59
interactions Virgil, is you never get the sense of what's real.
27:03
Maybe this is the most honest he's ever been with someone. Maybe, maybe,
27:07
but this guy is a fucking sociopath. He's a psychopath.
27:10
He murders Zuma Thurmand in the first five minutes of
27:13
the movie. Now, to be fair, the film makes the
27:16
key that she didn't deserve it, but Virgil almost goes, well,
27:20
I understand why you did it, but that doesn't make
27:23
it okay. But the movie, to me, and I'm curious
27:28
how you feel about this, the movie didn't me. Feels
27:29
like one long joke, one long joke that Lauras von
27:32
Truer is telling. It's like the aristocrats, you know what
27:34
I mean. Then we have him kill the Uma Thurman,
27:37
and he kills Elvis Presley's daughter, and then he's killing
27:39
Shabou and Fallon and then he's killing you know this
27:42
family and then he's doing this and then then at
27:44
the end he falls into the pit of hell and
27:46
dies to the aristocrat like you know what I mean, Like,
27:48
it's it's it's that, it's that, it's the increasing intensity
27:53
that by the end of the movie, you're just like,
27:54
what what else can happen at this point? Oh, he
27:57
goes to hell, literally goes to hell. That's the only
28:00
outcome here that like that makes sense. And if if
28:03
you're going with Dante's Virgil on a trip to hell,
28:07
the going to hell is guaranteed, the getting out is not.
28:11
And that's the thing that Jack again Jack is too
28:14
narcissistic to realize. But Virgil is Virgil's aware of from
28:17
the moment he meets him. Is Virgil's you know, And
28:20
you never get the sense of who Virgil has been
28:22
weaponized by because it's it's mentioned that Virgil is doing
28:26
someone else's bidding who it's not made clear, but Virgil
28:30
goes like, why was asked to bring you down here
28:32
like this? You know this was a favor And he's like,
28:34
and you know, I'm taking you down here because you
28:36
gave me something to think about the way other people hadn't.
28:39
But this dialogue between Virgil and Jack is so interesting
28:46
because it really is. It's I'm obviously again it's the
28:49
framing device of the film, but I think for me
28:52
it's the part of the movie that that's the larsmon
28:54
Trier of it all. Like, that's what makes this movie
28:57
feel so compelling, is the Virgil and Jack interaction. It's
29:02
the leaning into the cause. Again, you have to assume
29:05
that the paranormal and the supernatural exists in this world
29:08
in some capacity, given that Dante's Virgil is here walking
29:11
around with no explanation, which is note needed, no, but
29:16
in this world of the supernatural and the paranormal. And
29:19
there's even a point where Jack goes, you know, the
29:21
rain washed away the blood, so it must have been,
29:23
you know, divine intervention. There's a no blessing from God,
29:27
and it's like, you know, I, you know, I think
29:29
of something that came out much later than this movie
29:31
with U. Nope, but it's you know what is a
29:34
bad miracle?
29:35
Speaker 4: Right?
29:36
Speaker 1: And you know, like I don't know, like that you
29:38
could make the case that if there is clearly a
29:40
hell and there's clearly a heaven, and that these two
29:43
entities might be able to intercede in some capacity, then
29:47
why is it hard to believe that the devil wouldn't
29:49
be interceding on Jack's behalf to allow him to continue
29:52
to kill people?
29:53
Speaker 5: Right?
29:54
Speaker 1: I mean again, you know, divine, divine intervention doesn't necessarily
29:57
have to be positive, and in Jack's case, the idea
30:01
that he has any chance of going anywhere positive is hilarious.
30:05
Though I do like the idea that he is trying
30:07
to please God by doing what he does, and that
30:11
is his kind of dodge. That's his lie that he's
30:13
convinced himself of. Is that this is art. You know,
30:17
he talks about in the cathedrals there being artwork that
30:21
is unseeable by the human eyes up in the rafters,
30:24
up in the corners, and who's able to see that
30:26
but God? And and I think, you know, it's it's
30:30
interesting because I'm pretty sure the point of that is
30:32
he believed, and again, like it's self reflective on larzvan Trier.
30:36
I am a transgressive artist who believes that the art
30:40
that I create can only be understood and accepted by
30:43
a higher being. That's a pretty wild statement to make
30:47
in a movie, but that is essentially the statement that's
30:50
being made metatexturally by larsvon Trier. I don't think larsvon
30:53
Trier is a sociopath, but I think he thinks he.
30:56
I think he thinks Is he not Jack? Is he
30:59
not the main character of the film, like he's I mean,
31:02
it's it's a lot of the film is very meta
31:04
textual in what it's talking about, right, It's not I'm
31:07
not reading into it. This is intentional.
31:09
Speaker 5: I mean, I don't know about him thinking himself is
31:12
I think there's a lot of other conversations about violence
31:16
that he's trying to have here. There's a lot of
31:17
conversations about the like innate human desire sometimes to see
31:23
people literally like dispatched in a way like Uma Thurman
31:29
is in the first five minutes of this. There are
31:31
a lot of people that are wishing ill towards others
31:35
that he's probably speaking on as far as himself. I
31:37
don't know. I mean, if you apply that to all
31:40
of his films equally, you just start to picture, like
31:43
his Lars von Treer just a monster. And honestly, maybe
31:46
he is not taking that away from it. But to me,
31:49
I don't pull the meta textual I'm a sociopath reading
31:54
from this film.
31:55
Speaker 1: No, no, no, I don't. I'm not pulling him as a sociopath.
31:57
I'm talking about the the art aspect of it, the
32:00
act of being an artist. Lars von Trier like clearly
32:04
sees himself as someone who is pushing the envelope and
32:08
pushing the medium of whatever art he's working in to
32:12
a transgressive degree. And he, I would say, like looking
32:16
at the character of Jack in this movie, Jack sees
32:18
himself as an artist. He sees the art that he's
32:21
doing as so transgressive or progressive that the only person
32:25
who could realistically understand what he's doing can't be here.
32:29
They have to be a higher power of some capacity.
32:32
And so I just I find it interesting that again
32:35
Lars von Trier is I think he's making the statement
32:37
that to be an artist, to be an artist in
32:40
a lot of ways, is to embrace the worst aspects
32:43
of who you are in the hopes that those aspects
32:46
are not when you're synthesizing them in a way that
32:50
is safe and not like Jack, because that's the other
32:53
thing that the movie is saying is, look, there are
32:55
safe ways to do transgressive art. This is not one
32:58
of them. This is clearly the worst way to be
33:02
part of a transgressive art movement is to be killing
33:05
people and then utilizing their bodies as display thing. But again,
33:10
you have to go back to the idea of so
33:12
much of the movie is about art, and the conversations
33:15
that Jack has with Dante is about art and what
33:19
makes art art. They keep showing Jay Gould the piano player,
33:23
over and over, and Jack keeps talking about the level
33:26
of artistic complexity that he had as a piano player,
33:31
and that that's, you know, that's the height of art,
33:33
and that's the height of you know, complexity in terms
33:36
of creating art. Is you know this piano player, and
33:38
you know Jack is trying to hold himself to that
33:41
same expectation. He tears his house down several times because
33:45
it's not perfect, it's not good enough. The material doesn't
33:49
the material isn't speaking to him the way that he wants,
33:52
like so much of this movie in a lot of
33:53
ways feels like an artist having a conversation with himself
33:57
about like why am I the way that I am?
33:59
Why do I make the things that I make? Because
34:01
the things that I make are so boundary pushing, like
34:05
compared to like a Marvel film. Like again, we've already
34:08
talked about how much this movie is not made for
34:10
everyone and how complex this film is in terms of
34:13
the message that it has. But I do think that
34:15
you know, again, we you know, make the joke about
34:17
Werner Herzog directing like a Marvel film, like larsan Trier
34:20
directing a Marvel film would be equally as insane, because
34:23
it's like, why are you not lowering yourself? But the
34:27
conversations that you're having as an artist are so much
34:29
more complex and interesting, And we've seen that already that
34:33
to go in that direction might be stifling yourself creatively intentional,
34:38
and he's not interested in doing that. Like I don't
34:41
think Larson Truer has ever seen a scene in a
34:44
film that he's written that he doesn't feel like he
34:46
can execute on, including Willem Dafoe cutting his own penis
34:49
off in Antichriz, like Larson, Trier is a progressive and
34:52
transgressive artist, and I think that it's not He's not
34:55
calling himself a sociopath, but I think he's having a
34:57
conversation with himself about the art that I making is
35:00
clearly transgressive and boundary pushing, and this character in this
35:04
movie is doing the same thing. Why am I like that?
35:07
Speaker 5: See? And the way I've always taken that is theoretically
35:10
because it's nearing, like he knew that his career is
35:14
likely coming to an end soon after this. I feel
35:16
like this was a message to the audience and saying,
35:19
you know, my films are like this, Why are you
35:22
like that? Why do you want to see this?
35:24
Speaker 1: I don't think that. I don't think that either of
35:27
our answers are wrong. I think that he is having
35:30
that conversation as well. I think that this movie is
35:33
so intentionally complex, and I would also say intentionally vague,
35:38
that he is having that conversation as well. And again
35:41
I go back to the idea, like I mentioned before,
35:43
of the movie being a joke. I'm not saying the
35:46
film is a joke, but the film is telling a
35:48
really cruel joke, which is we have a serial killer
35:51
in a lot of these scenes where we know he's
35:54
a serial kid, right, and the people in those scenes don't.
35:56
And there is a perverse sense of satisfaction that we
36:00
get as the audience watching larsvon Trier taking a serial killer,
36:06
putting them in a scene and going, we'll just see
36:08
what happened. Because I think, for me, as much as
36:10
I love this movie, which I do love this movie unabashed,
36:13
the scene with Uma Thurman, for me is really I mean,
36:17
it is the You could turn the movie off after that,
36:19
and I think you would get exactly what you need
36:21
to get from the movie, because the subtext of using
36:24
the word jack over and over again is completely intense,
36:27
and it's so intentional in the best way that if
36:31
you if you watch this movie without even taking that
36:34
into consideration, immediately that the anytime they say jack, it's
36:37
going to have a double meaning. Like I don't know,
36:39
like I love the idea of a serial killer. It's
36:42
the old joke like a serial killer walks into a bar,
36:44
a serial killer picks up a woman who is convinced
36:47
he's not a serial killer, and makes jokes about him
36:50
not being a serial killer the whole time. The setup
36:52
is a joke in and of itself, and then to
36:54
have someone who says perverse as Larzwan Trier being the
36:56
one setting the joke up. You know that the punchline
36:59
is going to be something special, and it is. I mean,
37:03
the fact that a character named Jack kills a character
37:07
with a Jack who is unwilling to believe that he
37:10
is a serial killer. Is I mean again, like what
37:13
more could you want?
37:14
Speaker 3: Really?
37:14
Speaker 1: What more could you want from an opening scene of
37:17
your film about a serial killer is to not just
37:20
address the serial killer of it all, of like, well,
37:22
how are these people gonna die in this movie? So
37:24
stupidly like if this guy is so obviously a serial killer,
37:27
it's like, well that's not the case. And and even
37:29
if it is the case, people have a really easy
37:32
way of convincing themselves otherwise, Like you know, they like
37:36
Keifer Sutherland says in phone but like a ringing phone
37:38
has to be answered. You know, if you were in
37:40
a car with someone like this, we've all done it.
37:43
We've all made the joke like what are you taking
37:44
me somewhere to kill me? Like, boy, you picked the
37:46
wrong day to make that joke, because now it's gonna
37:49
happen again, like it's funny, Like there's nothing about like
37:51
it's it's it's hilarious. And again, like that's the thing
37:53
about this movie that I have a hard time getting
37:56
someone else over the hump of which is this movie
37:59
is hilarios. It's fucked up, though, but it's hilarious.
38:02
Speaker 5: There are so many scenes in this movie that are
38:05
littered with black humor to the blackest degree that is
38:10
so ridiculous. I mean, we're gonna talk about the other
38:13
deaths at some point, I'm sure, but like the one
38:15
that you already mentioned with the rain washing away the blood,
38:18
there are so many moments in that like twenty minute
38:21
segment that you are tense and then he quietly breaks
38:26
the tension with the It's not even like a laugh break,
38:29
but like something menial or you like feeling that relief
38:33
of tension that it genuinely feels funny. Man, he is
38:37
masterful at it in this movie. It is so well done.
38:40
Speaker 1: And again, it's not there's nothing funny about this movie. Inherently,
38:44
it's a guy murdering a bunch of women and children, right,
38:47
and then re decides to kill some men at the end,
38:50
which I'm sure we'll talk about that and we get
38:53
to it. But there is, on the face of it,
38:55
nothing funny about this movie. But this movie is hilarious.
38:59
Like there are, yeah, there are. There are so many
39:02
scenes in this movie where I'm like, man, you know,
39:04
Lars ron Truz just sitting there like laughing to himself
39:07
while writing this, just being like, oh my god, like
39:08
some I hope when they watch this, I hope they
39:11
find this as funny as I do. Because the scene
39:13
with Uma Thurman is it's I mean again like it's
39:15
pitch black comedy. But the idea that we have the
39:19
most well known actress in the movie pulling a Janet
39:22
Lee or a Drew Barrymore and dying in the first
39:25
ten minute and getting her face caved in by Matt
39:28
Dillon with a jack while talking about how he couldn't
39:32
she's he's a wimp and there's no way he could
39:35
kill her. And again, you know, look at someone like
39:37
Ted Bundy, no one thought he was a serial killer
39:39
because he was good looking. Look at someone like Gary
39:41
Ridgeway who was technically killing people at the same time
39:44
as Jack. If you want to contextualize this in the
39:46
real world, because this takes place in Washington State, and
39:49
Gary Ridgeway, the Green River Killer was killing in Washington
39:52
State at the time of this movie. Like again, he's
39:54
clearly one of the inspirations because when you look at
39:57
Gary Ridgeway, he looks like a fucking dumb shit and
40:00
he is like a moron, Like he has a low IQ.
40:02
He's an idiot. Like, let's call him what he is.
40:04
He's a fucking moron. This guy is not that. But
40:08
the thing that's so smart is by making him look
40:12
like a dipshit with the glasses and the way he
40:16
dresses and just I don't know what it is about him,
40:19
because Matt Dylan's a physically imposing guy, but in this
40:23
movie he's he's really neutered. And I'm wondering if it's
40:27
the it's the glasses or the way he talks or
40:30
the way he carries himself. But they, you know, again,
40:33
like the idea that like, well, these women would get
40:35
in the car with Gary Ridgeway, why would they do that.
40:37
It's like because they weren't threatened. They didn't find this
40:39
guy to be threatening. It's the fact that he could
40:42
be threatening without seeming threatening is the scary part. That's
40:46
the horrifying part. That's what makes this so scary. And
40:49
that's the thing about Matt Dillon. I think that's so
40:52
smart casting is that Matt Dillon, he is physically imposing.
40:56
And I wouldn't just get into a car with someone
40:58
that looked like him, But the idea that people would,
41:00
I guess I kind of get it because he does
41:03
look kind of disarming. He's not physically he's not as
41:07
he's physically imposing maybe, but he's not as imposing as
41:10
you would think you And I'm wondering your take on
41:13
why that is, because that's part of the movie, is
41:15
like why are these people doing this with this guy?
41:17
It's like, well, they don't feel threatened by it.
41:19
Speaker 5: Well, not only that, in literally every single situation in
41:22
this movie, it's not just a rando. It is him
41:25
helping somebody, It is him having an established relationship with somebody.
41:28
It is him attacking somebody randomly out of the blue
41:33
and attacking them immediately like there's no there's no opportunity
41:36
for somebody to be like charmed by him necessarily because
41:40
it's I.
41:40
Speaker 1: Don't see it if there is right, He's not.
41:44
Speaker 5: Like with the Uma Thurman thing. She is in need
41:47
of help. She is she is making herself vulnerable to
41:51
get into this situation. Later on, he is literally in
41:55
a relationship and dating somebody when he does it another
41:59
time after that, he comes out of the blue and
42:01
does it to somebody where they like, there's not even
42:04
a moment for them to feel vulnerable. They're just dead immediately.
42:08
So it's not ever really a question in this film
42:12
because he You're right, he is intimidating to a point,
42:16
but there is something sort of disarming probably about the
42:20
way that he kind of transforms himself physically in this
42:24
because the glasses combined with like that very subtle way
42:29
that he protrudes his lower jaw. In this movie, he
42:32
automatically feels like a little bit of a goober or
42:35
like a dumb shit like you said earlier, like he
42:37
is looks like somebody that is, yeah, perhaps physically intimidating,
42:42
but certainly not somebody that you go, oh, they're clearly
42:45
here to overpower me.
42:46
Speaker 1: Well, and that's the thing you get the sense in
42:48
this movie that and again, like it's believable. This is
42:52
the thing about this movie that I really appreciate, and
42:54
that's you know, the Evan Peters of it all, Like, yo,
42:56
if you saw Evan Peters and we're supposed to believe
42:58
that's dam or like he looks like a like don't
43:02
go near him. The fact that anybody followed him to
43:04
his fucking apartment, the way he the way he like
43:07
Jeffrey Dahmer, the guy was normal looking. Evan Peters's Dahmer
43:12
is not. And it's hard for me to believe in
43:15
the narrative that a character in that narrative would follow
43:18
a guy to an apartment that looked like that. This guy, yeah,
43:21
this guy. On the other hand, I believe it. And
43:23
some of it is, you know, the Uma Thurman of
43:25
it all, Like some of it is the like she's
43:29
vulnerable and needs help, so there's nothing she could do
43:31
about it. But like you said, Riley Ko, she is
43:34
literally in a relationship with this guy. And you know,
43:37
you've already mentioned it a little bit. And I think
43:39
what's interesting is the idea of so we are being
43:43
told by Jack Stories that he's picking intention And I
43:47
love that the movie addresses like Lars von Truer is
43:50
essentially the Virgil of the piece, like he's put himself
43:53
as the director he's put himself in the film, and
43:56
he's having the conversation with Jack in a lot of
43:58
ways like he's he's massage in that conversation, and you know,
44:02
he says it to him, He's like, hey man, you
44:04
know this is a you know, this justification that you're
44:08
using here, it's not really gonna fly. Like this is
44:11
not like, this is not art, This is not okay,
44:14
Like what you're doing is not okay. And Jack just
44:17
goes well, but it is because this this, this is
44:19
this is all I know, like you know, like I
44:23
have only ever known being this way. And there's this
44:26
there's a scene at the end of the film where
44:29
we kind of have a callback to a moment that
44:32
Jack shares with Virgil about like the when he felt
44:35
happy or when he felt like genuinely at peace, and
44:39
then we see that echoed at the end of the movie,
44:42
and there's this moment where you realize like and you
44:44
see it on Matt Dylan's face that like, oh man,
44:46
like you just didn't get it, huh, Like you you
44:49
missed it. You you missed it from day one and
44:52
instead of ever looking at what you were doing and
44:55
saying like this is so not okay, Like I just
44:59
I was so hell bent in my ways. I was
45:02
so unwilling. I was so unwilling to like let my
45:05
better vices just be vices and just be in the background,
45:09
and I didn't have to embrace them. It's the addict
45:13
It's the you know, it's that thing that they're talking
45:16
about with the street lights, where he's walking in between
45:19
the street lights and how to describe to someone what
45:21
it feels like to me to have that urge to kill.
45:25
And then you know, Virgil goes, well, it's not just killing,
45:27
you know, like this is an addict mentality, Like this
45:30
is an addicts mentality, like and that's the other thing.
45:33
It's like the film is about addiction and being addicted to,
45:37
in his case, the act of being in power, because
45:41
he doesn't feel in control of his own life at all.
45:43
And that's the thing. I mean again, you know when
45:46
Virgil says, you know, you didn't read the right books.
45:48
You are only this way because you've chosen to be
45:51
this way. Nothing has caused you to be this. And
45:53
I think that that is such an interesting takeaway because
45:56
that is a in a lot of ways, that's a rejection.
45:59
But and embracing of the nature versus nurture conversation, because
46:03
I think Lars won Trier is making a little bit
46:06
more of a specific statement about it than I would
46:08
have expected with the movie like this, which is it's
46:11
more nature, not nurtured, like you are the way you
46:14
are because of who you fucking are like. And you know,
46:18
I like that about this movie that Lars won Trier
46:21
not only has something to say about serial killers, but
46:25
he also has something to say about this specific conversation
46:28
of where does personal accountability lie with these kinds of people,
46:32
because they are constantly looking for ways to shirk accountability
46:36
and put it on someone else. And that's the other
46:38
thing about this movie is Lars won Truer is holding
46:41
a serial killer accountable in a way that like no
46:44
other film director ever has because he's sending all He's
46:48
sending collectively, all the serial killers to hell with.
46:51
Speaker 5: This movie is what it feels like right.
46:53
Speaker 1: By amalgamating them into one guy.
46:55
Speaker 5: With the addiction side though, and this it's arguably on
47:00
the nose, but in a movie like this, some of
47:01
it can be. On top of that, it's also about
47:04
purely the thing that he is obviously suffering from which
47:08
is obsessions and compulsions. I mean the amount of things
47:12
that we see him do before that scene in the
47:17
trailer essentially that you find out like he no, this
47:21
guy is like full blown OCD. Before that, there's like
47:24
these these quirks that you go, well, something's something's off.
47:28
This is like this is like, uh, like autism to
47:31
the max. Maybe maybe his mom took a lot of
47:34
tail and all when he was in the womb. That
47:36
was possible time relevant joke. Sorry, but uh, it's it's
47:40
just sort of off. And then you get to that
47:42
scene and you go, oh, fuck, no, like his brain
47:46
is full blown broken and he is very obsessive and
47:50
very compulsive, and based on that it is shaping his
47:53
entire life. And so from there, the amount of things
47:56
like the propping up of the victims for the photo
47:59
that you see later, or the apartment scene and what
48:04
happens in the alley below after that, all of those
48:07
things can sort of come back to this, and it
48:09
is a bit of an explanation. Because he is on
48:12
his own personal journey, these obsessions and compulsions affect him
48:16
in different ways, not only killing and recovering from those scenes,
48:20
but literally how he processes those things internally.
48:23
Speaker 1: And what's interesting is we not only get to see
48:25
the idea of why would it beat this way on
48:30
his own, but what would it be like if you
48:31
were with others too?
48:33
Speaker 6: Right?
48:34
Speaker 5: Right? Especially in that apartment scene.
48:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, in the apartment scene for sure, and then with
48:39
the scene with his family, which I think for me,
48:41
like that's the.
48:43
Speaker 5: That is the disturbing scene.
48:44
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the app Well, so I was going
48:47
to ask you before we talk about that scene specifically,
48:49
what for you is kind of the scene in the
48:51
movie where I'm like, this is we're what's the one
48:55
vignette in the movie you can skip? That's probably the
48:58
best way of putting that question that you can No, no,
49:01
you would skip in terms of it being just like
49:03
it's just one notch too much. Oh see, I have
49:07
my answer, but it's only because of the way the
49:09
scene ends.
49:10
Speaker 5: I don't know that it's too much, but it might
49:12
be the apartment scene. And it's not even just that
49:14
it's disturbing for me. Its just I feel like we
49:17
already knew all of that about the character and we
49:20
probably didn't need it expanded on even more. The only
49:25
thing it really did was show like his sort of
49:29
more about his crazy diatribes and tendencies towards others well.
49:34
Speaker 1: And I think the scene in the apartment with Riley
49:36
ko I think for many of us that is the
49:40
scene in the movie that any one of us could
49:43
have a frame of reference for, because we've been in
49:46
our apartment with one other person before, and it may
49:49
have been early in a relationship or maybe someone you're
49:51
just getting to know, and you're like, is this person
49:53
a fucking serial killer? Like are they gonna kill me?
49:56
Like and again there is a fifty to fifty shot
49:58
that they are, you know what I mean? It really
50:00
is that easy, Like either someone's a serial killer or
50:03
they're not, Like there is no in between here with
50:06
the with this kind of conversation. And I think for me,
50:10
the apartment scene is the most disturbing scene, Like it's
50:14
it's the one that I think any one of us
50:16
could imminently empathize with. You have Riley Keo, who is
50:21
Elvis's granddaughter, which I feel like is intentionally like you
50:24
have you know, you know, a pop culture icon's family
50:27
member being murdered, Like there's a little bit of like
50:29
she's too and like the fact that she keeps getting
50:33
talked down to in a way that like is it's
50:37
the most misogynistic throughout the entire film. Like, he's not
50:40
insulting Uma Thurman, he's not insulting Shabou and Fallon. He
50:44
is insulting Riley Keo over and over and over again
50:48
and talking down to her and belittling her. And it's
50:51
almost like we're finally getting to see the final piece
50:55
of the puzzle of who he is, where it's just
50:57
like not in his head. He is just an unbridled
50:59
misogynstick piece of shit who does not have any capacity
51:04
to put himself in the position of someone else, which
51:08
we would call empathy, and he has zero empathy, and
51:11
the empathy that he has is in the negative when
51:16
it comes to women and children. For whatever reason, he
51:19
seems to have some level of empathy for men because
51:21
he listens to the military guy at the end of
51:24
the movie, he actually listens to him, he stops and
51:26
he goes like the only male character in the film
51:29
that he kills could be construed as kind of the
51:32
father paternal figure of the piece, other than the Virgil
51:37
kind of character. But like, we have a character who
51:40
is a older male character who is surprised that Jack
51:45
is a piece of shit. When he finally catches on
51:47
to what's going on, he's like, I couldn't believe it.
51:49
What's going on? Like that scene, however, in the apartment
51:53
is it's just it's it's I think it's the true
51:57
being of the character. It's him letting all of him
52:00
his guards down completely, which is why it's such an
52:03
upsetting scene because there is there's no level of fun
52:07
to it. It's not fun like it's actually and it
52:10
goes on for a really long time too, like it
52:13
goes love for like a half an hour, is what
52:15
it feels like. And by the end of it, I mean,
52:17
he's mutilating Riley Keo. And you know again, I mean
52:21
he's doing he's doing a level of mutilation that is,
52:24
you know, intentional towards the gender of the person, cutting
52:28
her breasts off, you know, I mean, if you were
52:30
to cut her vagina off, which is what ed Geen did.
52:33
I mean, that's the only other thing that you could
52:35
do in terms of kind of you know, mutilating a
52:37
woman in a gender specific way. But yeah, for me,
52:40
it's that scene. I actually the last time I watched
52:44
the movie. I skipped because I was like, I don't,
52:46
I just I don't need to see it because I've
52:49
it's not an entertaining scene. It's hits too close. It
52:52
hits too close to what I've heard talked about with
52:55
people who have survived those kinds, you know, and then
52:58
you wonder how many of the people that have been
53:00
in a position of Riley Keo that didn't survive, you know,
53:02
their stories never get.
53:04
Speaker 5: Told, right of course. Well, and if we're just talking
53:07
about on a disturbing level, I got a shout out
53:09
a friend of mine and a friend of yours that
53:11
has recorded with both of us, Miss Erica Schultz. This
53:14
is this is a big movie for Erica.
53:15
Speaker 4: Oh.
53:16
Speaker 5: I read book on child death and film and this
53:20
has one of the more like doesn't hold anything back
53:24
child deaths and uh that yes, yes, well one is
53:30
a little bit more brutal than the other. But yes,
53:32
this this movie is a great example of leaning into
53:36
that and how shocking it can be. And so those
53:38
I'm all for. I think those type of things should
53:41
be shown in a film like this to show just
53:43
how deprave that situation is. What gets me is the
53:45
more disturbing, and the sociopath of it all is deposing
53:50
for the film camera shot after when it's like, literally,
53:54
let's take the whole family to put them together and
53:57
snap a quick pick, and you're taking just murdered bodies
54:01
and laying them out in just the most depraved way.
54:05
It is so unnecessary, but it also shows you so
54:09
much about his characters, So I don't even really want
54:11
to like skip it necessarily because it's more of man
54:14
he it's not even just about the killing. There is
54:17
so much more to it than that at this point.
54:20
Speaker 1: Well, and so yeah, let's talk more specifically. I think
54:24
about the hunting scene, because I think the hunting scene
54:26
is definitely it's the scene that I think if you
54:29
watch it from start to finish and you make it
54:32
to the end of the scene, I think you're probably
54:33
good for the rest of the movie. Like, it's about
54:35
as much other than the Riley Kyo scene. It's as
54:38
much as the movie's gonna throw at you in terms of,
54:40
like you said, like being disturbing or upsetting or transgressive.
54:44
Because the child is shot the head right and we
54:47
see it, you see the shot of it happening, Like
54:50
when I was watching this film with my friends last week.
54:52
We were gaming together while watching and a friend of
54:54
mine goes, man, that fucked me up, and I was
54:56
like what. He's like, watch that kid get shot in
54:58
the head man, what the fuck? And I was like,
54:59
I mean, yeah, like it's fucked up, Like that's the point,
55:02
Like it's literally that's the intent. He's like, that's fair,
55:05
and I was like, well, there you go. Like I mean, like,
55:07
I don't know what else to say, Like to Erica
55:09
Schultz's point from when we talked to her, like either
55:11
you're gonna do it or you're not, Like there's no
55:13
in between here, like it's it's you do the in between.
55:16
It feels like a cheat, And this movie decides to
55:19
your point, it's more important to just do it because
55:22
if you do it, if they didn't do it, it would
55:24
feel like it's pulling its punches. And I'd tell this
55:25
movie that it's not going far enough, and the fact
55:28
that it does it, I'm like, Wow, I don't like it,
55:30
but I respect Larzwan Trier for doing it. And I think, again,
55:35
if we're talking about this movie being like, what's you know?
55:38
Jack is one of the most despicable characters ever put
55:40
to film, because he is essentially just an amalgamation of
55:43
some of the worst people ever to walk the planet.
55:46
Then I think one of the kind of intentions of
55:50
the movie is and I think, you know, you probably
55:53
be inclined to agree. Like Lars won Trier, on top
55:55
of everything else, also had to spend an entire movie
55:57
making sure there's no way we have any level of
56:01
empathy for this guy. And we have any level of
56:03
sympathy for this guy because he's killing children, he's killing women,
56:09
he's mutilating them, he's posing their dead bodies multiple different times,
56:14
multiple different ways. He's sadistic. He revels in his sadism.
56:18
He's a sexual sadist too well. But I don't know
56:21
if he's a sexualist. He might not be a sexual
56:23
satis but he's a sadist. I mean, we never that's
56:26
the one thing we never get the sense of is
56:28
what drives him sexually. Larsanre never talks about it, right,
56:31
which is weird, right? Think about it?
56:35
Speaker 5: Yes it is.
56:35
Speaker 1: But but what's interesting is if you think about the
56:38
people that are inspiring the character of Jack, Gary Ridgeway
56:42
sexual sadist, Ted Bundy sexual sadist. It's weird. It's almost
56:46
like the movie goes, you know what, you know that
56:49
that's going to be part of it, and I don't
56:51
need to show it. We just can all say it's implied,
56:54
you know what I mean? Like it's almost like the
56:56
Freddy Krueger of it all, Like everybody always says, like, well,
56:59
Freddy Krueger, originally it was supposed to be a child
57:01
molester and they pulled back on it. Like, you know what,
57:03
I don't care if they pulled back on it. I
57:05
still fucking assume that's what he was doing, right, It's
57:07
still like implied, is heavily implied? And in this movie,
57:11
do you really believe that this guy wouldn't be doing that? No,
57:15
he's It's probably just not something even he is not
57:18
proud of. That's the thing. Think about it, though, Think
57:21
about the things he's talking about in this movie. The
57:24
framing device of this movie matters so much.
57:26
Speaker 5: Because, yeah, because he's telling his own story.
57:28
Speaker 1: And he's telling a story when being given the opportunity
57:32
to talk, he is talking about these moments specifically like
57:36
they are you know, like they're the birth of his
57:38
child or you know, the moment he graduated from college
57:42
or you know, when he got married, Like he has
57:45
none of those moments to recount. He only has these
57:47
moments in his life that he goes over in his
57:50
head over and over again, where he murdered the women
57:52
and children in the middle of a field and imposed
57:55
their bodies and on top of everything else. We haven't
57:58
talked about it, the aspect of the free that all
58:00
of his bodies are preserved, that it's like a constant
58:03
reminder that he has this kind of shrine. You know,
58:06
there's so many like houses in this movie. We see
58:09
his house that he's never able to build. But if
58:11
you take a house to be a four wall with
58:15
a ceiling, we have a house. He's in that freezer
58:18
so much of the movie, and he's in there and
58:20
he's surrounded by well again, by the end of the movie,
58:23
the building materials, but during the run of the film,
58:26
he's surrounded by his kind of trophies or his artwork
58:29
as he would call it, and he he doesn't bury them.
58:33
He makes a point of bringing their bodies back to
58:35
this freezer so that he can commune with them and
58:38
be surrounded by them like it's an art gallery. Like
58:41
he's you know, surrounding himself with his pieces of art.
58:43
It's just so perverse. It's it's but like again, like
58:48
if if the point of the film is for Larson
58:50
Trier to get us to the point where we hate
58:52
this guy and there is no shred of empathy left exactly,
58:57
But but think about how hard that is, right, because
59:00
even Leatherface has people that like even ghost Face has
59:04
people that like him. Yo, aren't the clown who hasn't
59:08
done a single nice thing in three films? To anyone
59:11
has merchandise that spirit children can dress up like? Arn't
59:15
the clown for Halloween? I guarantee you nobody is dressing
59:20
up like Jack for the House to Jack Bilt because
59:22
it would be, like you probably, I don't think so,
59:25
because it would be like dressing up like Ted Bundy
59:27
or Jeffrey Dwell.
59:28
Speaker 5: Well, we have people with bad uh yeah, choices, bad
59:33
faith actors, yes, And that's I mean.
59:36
Speaker 1: Lars von Trier has done what I would consider to
59:38
be a filmic impossible, which is create a compelling film
59:42
about one of the most if not I would say,
59:45
the most despicable characters put to cinema. Because there's there's
59:49
no moment in this movie where he's not going, yeah,
59:52
this guy's like terrible. Yeah, Like there's nothing about him
59:55
that's redeemable. He even when given the opportunity to go
59:59
to hell and just be okay with the fact that
1:00:03
he did all this, even in that moment, he can't
1:00:05
do it. Like he's a piece of shit all the
1:00:08
way down. And the fact that Lauras Vontruer goes, you
1:00:11
know what, by the end of the movie, the only
1:00:13
person who can pass judgment is me. So I'm going
1:00:15
to pass judgment on him and send him to hell.
1:00:18
And I'm not going to give him a moment to
1:00:20
apologize for it, because I've given him a moment to
1:00:22
apologize for it and he never took it. He spent
1:00:25
an entire lifetime being a piece of shit. And I
1:00:29
love that about it is that there is nothing redeemable
1:00:32
about Jack. But I love that about this movie. So
1:00:35
it resonated with me the way it was supposed, which
1:00:37
is I get to watch a movie about someone that
1:00:40
I would never want to realistically interact with in real life,
1:00:43
a person that I could not see myself being, but
1:00:46
someone who I will watch someone else allow them rope
1:00:50
to hang themselves because here's the thing that we also
1:00:53
don't really have in our society. Yes we have serial
1:00:57
killers talking about themselves, but we don't know how much
1:01:00
of it is the truth because they're like liars. They
1:01:03
are liars in a way that is hard to fathom
1:01:06
unless you are like, this is like the this is
1:01:10
in a lot of ways, like the safest way of
1:01:11
having this conversation without having it directly with Ted Bundy
1:01:15
or John Wayne Gacy or Gary Ridgeway or the BTK
1:01:20
Dennis Raider, like. So much of the human condition and
1:01:25
the obsession with serial killers is wondering why someone did
1:01:29
something that we could not fathom doing ourselves. And we
1:01:33
never feel like we're ever going to get a good
1:01:35
enough explanation from the real people, So why not look
1:01:38
to fictional versions for some semblance of an explanation. And
1:01:42
I think that's what Lars von Truer has kind of
1:01:44
availed himself of in this film, is having a conversation
1:01:48
in a lot of directions about a lot of different things,
1:01:49
but ultimately it's a conversation about the human condition and
1:01:53
people that are fucked up, just being fucked up and
1:01:57
knowing they're fucked up and doubling down on it and
1:02:00
tripling down on it and constantly taking no responsibility for
1:02:04
their action. The lack of accountability in this movie is insane.
1:02:08
Speaker 5: Yeah, and that's I mean, we are you know through
1:02:12
what you just said. He is telling his story through
1:02:14
this entire time, and I think it is important, like
1:02:17
you mentioned, to spend a minute talking about the like
1:02:20
the sheer iconography of the freezer that we see throughout
1:02:25
this entire film, but we don't really spend that much
1:02:28
time in it. We go back to it time and
1:02:29
time again, but never really enough to get stuck in
1:02:33
it or have it be a huge part of the
1:02:35
film until it needs to be at the end. However,
1:02:37
it feels like you're literally paving the way to hell
1:02:42
as this story goes on, and with every single scene
1:02:44
that you spend more and more moments in there, he
1:02:46
is just adding on to this list of just pure
1:02:51
craziness that you see with every single frame that keeps
1:02:54
coming into focus. And then by the time we get
1:02:57
to spend more time in the freezer, it is literally
1:02:59
like within view, I am about to spend eternity in
1:03:04
hill and you see that journey start and it's I
1:03:06
don't know it's powerful because you've spent so much time
1:03:09
getting there and not only just watching him do these
1:03:12
heinous things, but watching him come back time and time
1:03:14
again to the freezer, knowing that he is building his
1:03:17
path to hell.
1:03:18
Speaker 1: And that he's okay with it, and that he's like
1:03:21
in a way, like he's so unrepentant in in the
1:03:24
way that he acts. I mean the fact that like
1:03:26
that scene, the scene with Riley Keo where he taunts
1:03:30
her and he's like this, the world doesn't care like that.
1:03:34
That that is the serial killer mentality, is that the
1:03:37
world is so uncaring that my it adding to it
1:03:41
and being additionally uncaring. It's you know, it's a match
1:03:45
stick in a in a in a you know, in
1:03:47
a ground swell, like you you know, the rapids can't
1:03:49
be stopped by a singular log. So his thinking is, well,
1:03:53
if I if I can't stop it, that my contributing
1:03:56
to it doesn't really matter either, And so he lets
1:03:59
his worst impulses and compulsions rule him because yeah, you again,
1:04:03
like the world's already fucked up. There is no beauty
1:04:06
in the world other than the like the horrifying art
1:04:09
that I create. And it's like, dude, you know what like,
1:04:11
and Virgil says it, like, no, there is beauty in
1:04:13
the world. There is beauty in art. You just didn't
1:04:16
see it. And not only did you not see it,
1:04:18
in a lot of ways, you chose to ignore it
1:04:22
intentional because all of the things that you said make
1:04:25
you us the audience realize he's capable of understanding what's
1:04:30
going on in the world, he's choosing to ignore it intentionally.
1:04:33
And that's the thing about the movie and the framing
1:04:36
device being what it is is almost in a lot
1:04:38
of ways, I don't trust a single word that this
1:04:40
guy said. I know that there's those bodies in the freezer.
1:04:43
Those are real, But he's a serial killer. Why would
1:04:46
you trust him. He's lied to people his whole life.
1:04:49
Like think about Dexter, right, Like the person who Dexter is. Yeah,
1:04:52
it's great that he's a family man and he had
1:04:53
family whatever, Like he was lying the whole time, the
1:04:56
whole time. Nothing he was telling the truth to anybody
1:04:58
ever about anything, because he's a serial killer and he
1:05:00
would never tell anybody that. And and that's the thing
1:05:04
about this movie. It's like you can only get so
1:05:07
close because once you figure out what the truth is.
1:05:09
It's too late the Riley Kios character realizes what's going on,
1:05:12
and by the time she realizes what's going on, it's
1:05:15
too late. She could have left, she chose not to.
1:05:18
Speaker 5: Yeah, and we don't even know how long she could
1:05:19
have left. This was not like their first interaction. No,
1:05:22
clearly not their first innn. Yeah, this movie's so heavy.
1:05:26
I mean, every single one of these vignettes could be
1:05:28
like their own episode that we cover on these.
1:05:32
Speaker 1: Well, and that's the thing I mean again, like the
1:05:33
movie is so multifaceted in the message. You know, again,
1:05:37
it is about art, and it is about the way
1:05:39
art affects us and the way that the art and
1:05:41
the artist and the death of the artist, like and
1:05:44
and once, once I've created my art, how is it
1:05:47
going to be interpreted by who's seeing it? Because that's
1:05:49
the other thing. Like Jack is so clearly concerned with
1:05:53
the way that he's perceived externally. And I appreciate that
1:05:56
about the movie because we have the Mister Sophistication that's
1:05:59
his serial killer name, that's the name he gives himself,
1:06:03
which is so cringe by the way, like serial killers
1:06:06
giving themselves their own names, like let me suggest to
1:06:09
you some names that I would give myself, Like, fuck you,
1:06:12
you should be called the limptic loser who kills women
1:06:14
because he has no way to get his dick up,
1:06:16
Like that's what you should be called. Like there's no
1:06:19
like glorification or deification of you. But it's that self
1:06:22
mythologize that this movie is so concerned with. And you
1:06:25
have to wonder, like, is this the conversation that Dahmer
1:06:29
and Gacy and Bundy all had with themselves, Because that's
1:06:33
the other thing. The character of Jack in this movie
1:06:35
never stands trial. He's standing trial and as much as
1:06:38
he's passing judgment on himself, and Dante's Virgil is somewhat
1:06:42
passing judgment on him. But Virgil doesn't pass a lot
1:06:45
of judgment on Jack.
1:06:46
Speaker 5: He's just watching it happen.
1:06:48
Speaker 1: Jack is passing judgment on himself a lot of the time.
1:06:50
Speaker 5: Yep.
1:06:51
Speaker 1: And that's the thing, Like I wonder when Lars montru
1:06:54
was writing this is was he thinking about that possibility
1:06:57
that these people were having those conversations with themselves in
1:07:01
their later life once they had been caught, once they
1:07:03
had been captured, once they had been tried by the
1:07:06
courts as it were, where they sitting and trying themselves
1:07:09
in their own mental you know, palace constantly. I would
1:07:11
assume they were the ones that cared the ones that
1:07:14
didn't probably, you know. And that's the thing, like, how
1:07:16
do you even know what the reality? That's what this
1:07:18
movie keeps. That's why I keep coming back to with
1:07:20
this movie is like what is reality? The movie does
1:07:22
not make that. The reality that we know is the
1:07:24
reality that Jack is conveying to us. But how real
1:07:27
is reality when there's a room in your freezer that
1:07:30
Virgil from Dante's Inferno is it? That's what's ever explained.
1:07:34
Like the reality that we see in this movie is
1:07:37
so unreality because Dante's Virgil is chilling in a back
1:07:40
room the whole movie.
1:07:41
Speaker 5: That's the implication, right, Yeah, literally they can go back
1:07:45
to all the time.
1:07:46
Speaker 1: I don't Yeah, I don't understand. I don't understand what
1:07:48
the reality of the movie is meant to be. I guess.
1:07:51
And that's the other thing about the movie. It doesn't
1:07:53
feel for as real as the violence feels and as
1:07:57
grounded as the gore that we see on screen, is
1:08:01
because a relatively go gore lists movie. Yeah, right, the disturbing,
1:08:05
Like and that's the thing about this movie that I think,
1:08:07
like really pisses me off when people talk about horror movies, like, oh,
1:08:10
is it gory, Like you know, movies could be disturbing
1:08:12
without being gory.
1:08:13
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's it's very violent, but not bloody.
1:08:15
Speaker 1: No. Like there's like maybe like a handful of scenes
1:08:18
with the movie. I just don't feel like, at the
1:08:21
end of the day, like the movie isn't necessarily concerned
1:08:24
with I don't know that the concern that I feel
1:08:27
the movie is genuinely worried about with you as the
1:08:30
audience isn't whether or not it's going to upset you.
1:08:32
It's whether or not By the end of the movie,
1:08:34
you as the audience are okay with Jack eating shit
1:08:37
into hell, and I, as an audience member, am okay
1:08:41
with it because that's where he belongs. And that's what
1:08:43
is so interesting about the movie and Laars Vontruer as
1:08:46
a filmmaker is that he he spends two and a
1:08:49
half hours telling us something we already know. Serial killers
1:08:51
are pieces of shit that don't tell the trip, that
1:08:54
lie all the time, that are that destroy, that see
1:08:57
people as object They don't they they they have compartmentalized
1:09:01
the ability to see people as something anything less than
1:09:04
an item for their benefit or control or their manipulation.
1:09:08
And I love that we have a serial killer movie
1:09:12
for two hours and twenty minutes and then in the
1:09:14
last twenty minutes we have them going into hell for real. Yeah,
1:09:18
And man, you can't convince me that where they were
1:09:20
filming those underground scenes wasn't actually because those scenes are wild,
1:09:25
Like I always forget that that's in this movie, but
1:09:28
my god, the scenes where they're underground in that like
1:09:32
underground river is fucking insane. Like again, like we go
1:09:36
to handicam shots for twenty minutes of this movie, What
1:09:38
the fuck?
1:09:39
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's certainly weird, and it's jarring in like kind
1:09:43
of the best way. Like obviously, when when you're starting
1:09:47
this movie you're not actively thinking about hell, but psychologically
1:09:50
you know that that's the obvious end to this. And
1:09:53
then I don't know, to make the rest of it
1:09:55
feel so realistic, and then to get so overtly spiritual
1:10:01
in the last section of this and it's not even
1:10:03
the third act. This is more like an epilogue, and
1:10:06
that in itself is I don't know, it's like a
1:10:09
masterclass in filmmaking because it's just it's not even tension necessarily,
1:10:14
it's just the epic conclusion essentially, which God, it's done
1:10:19
so well. I mean the acting there, like you feel
1:10:22
every step, you feel the moment's going going right up
1:10:27
to the edge of that thing, and it's I don't know,
1:10:29
it's it's such a crazy choice and hardly anybody would
1:10:32
have done that other than Lars Fontreer.
1:10:34
Speaker 1: How about the callback to the field, the Elysian Field
1:10:38
and the look on like that scene, the look on
1:10:41
Matt Dellan's face when he sees what heaven looks like
1:10:45
and heaven is what he had already thought it could be,
1:10:48
is just it's hilarious because you're just like, you know what,
1:10:52
you fucking idiot like that, and you know what that
1:10:54
that might not even be what heaven is for everybody,
1:10:56
but that's what heaven is for you. And that's punishment enough,
1:10:59
because it's just on the other side of this window. Yeah,
1:11:02
it's just on the other side of this like easy
1:11:04
to break through thing that in any other capacity you
1:11:07
would have had the strength to deal with. But now
1:11:09
you're in. Yeah, and now you're in hell and there's
1:11:11
nothing you can do about it. How does it feel
1:11:13
to feel so powerless? And I and I love that
1:11:16
the end of the movie is just snatching all of
1:11:18
the power away from him and throwing him to the
1:11:21
wolves and saying, you know what, buy And it's so deserved,
1:11:25
you know. I think that there was initially not going
1:11:28
to be an epilogue, and that the epilogue was suggested
1:11:30
by the co writer, Genie Halland I think is interesting
1:11:35
because again, like it feels like such the obvious ending
1:11:37
to the movie, but it wasn't apparently, but it works
1:11:41
so well to see him, like the final shot of
1:11:43
the movie being him falling to his death. And then again,
1:11:48
if it wasn't, if it wasn't clear that this movie
1:11:50
is a joke and that it shouldn't be taken imminently seriously,
1:11:54
it has one of the funniest goddamn needle drops every
1:11:57
right like it. And I always I always think to
1:11:59
my I'm like, is that the way the movie ends?
1:12:02
And then it actually ends that way, and I'm like, no,
1:12:04
that is the way the movie ends. And Lars Wan
1:12:06
Truer is just like looking at you and going, don't
1:12:09
you get it? Like you got it right like that.
1:12:11
That's the way I always walk away from this movie
1:12:14
is like Lars Wan Truer is spent two and a
1:12:15
half hours telling a really complex joke about you know
1:12:18
this one time a serial killer walked into Dante's inferno.
1:12:22
Because here's the other thing, we genuinely don't if we're
1:12:25
not sure if what we're seeing is real or not,
1:12:28
because we don't trust Jack, of course, then then how
1:12:32
can we trust that what we're seeing is what has
1:12:34
actually happened, or if it's not just him being resubjected
1:12:38
to the things that ultimately truly forced him to be
1:12:41
in hell. That's the other thing we again, like the
1:12:45
context of the movie is not made clear intention and
1:12:48
so we know that Jack is in hell. How he's
1:12:51
in hell is never made clear. But it would seem
1:12:54
to us that the movie is going to start again
1:12:57
immediately the moment it ends, Do you know what I mean?
1:13:00
Something very cyclical about the movie. It seems like by
1:13:02
the end of the movie it starts again because the
1:13:04
movie is picking up at the end, He's already met
1:13:07
Virgil at the at the beginning of the movie, which
1:13:09
is how the movie effectively ends, is by meeting Virgil.
1:13:12
He has to be Virgil for the movie to end.
1:13:13
It's very it's again like the movie. It's it's like
1:13:15
the movie's always been taking place, which I again I
1:13:18
appreciate because it just it speaks to the nature of
1:13:20
this always this is always gonna keep happening. This is
1:13:23
just gonna keep happen until we as a society can
1:13:25
figure out how to stop it. And there's no way
1:13:27
to stop it because if these people can't be honest
1:13:29
with themselves, which they are not, then there's never gonna
1:13:32
be a way for them to be honest with us.
1:13:35
And you know honesty, You know, art and honesty don't
1:13:38
necessarily go hand in hand, but you would think that
1:13:41
in a lot of ways, for someone to create something artistic,
1:13:44
it might be the most genuine outpouring of who they are.
1:13:47
And that's kind of what Virgil says to Jack. He's like,
1:13:50
no matter what you say, you still fucking killed them.
1:13:52
That's who you are. There's no way round it. We
1:13:56
can't can't deny that. That's too big to deny. And
1:13:59
I like that this conversation is just like, stop trying
1:14:03
to take zero responsibility for all of this, because this
1:14:06
is your fault.
1:14:08
Speaker 5: You know what's crazy too if you break down the
1:14:10
honesty thing, even just ever so slightly and just allow
1:14:13
yourself a moment to process that this is what he's
1:14:17
choosing to share with the audience, right, Imagine the things
1:14:20
that are worse that he's not choosing to share.
1:14:23
Speaker 1: Right, Because again, like he's he's trying to have this
1:14:26
conversation with Virgil where he's expressing to Virgil this artistic
1:14:31
you know, I don't know prowess that he has, which
1:14:34
he again like, look, let's just be honest here what
1:14:37
he has done in the movie. If you were to
1:14:39
strip away and this again, this is the conversation Matt
1:14:42
Dylan is trying, you know, Jack is trying to have
1:14:43
with the audience, and Virgil's getting in the way, which
1:14:45
is if you meet Matt Dillon's character Jack where he
1:14:48
wants to be met and take away the morally despicable
1:14:53
aspect of what he's doing where he has to kill
1:14:55
people to then have their bodies to use his art.
1:14:58
So let's just talk about take the killing out. Then, yes,
1:15:01
what he's doing is creating art. We'd both agree, right, like, yes,
1:15:05
he is correct, what he is doing is artwork. Correct,
1:15:07
it is not my medium, It is not your medium
1:15:10
of choice. It should not be anyone's medium of choice.
1:15:13
But yet it is his medium of choice, and he
1:15:15
finds himself to be an artist and the idea that,
1:15:19
like you said, so much of this movie is about
1:15:21
the artistic endeavors that he had. But we fucking know
1:15:24
he wasn't just doing this, like right, he was cutting
1:15:27
the feet off of ducks. Like this guy is a sociopath.
1:15:30
He's a psychopath. He's a murderer. He kills people and
1:15:33
it's mildly ironic and enjoys it, and it is it
1:15:37
is again once once again perverse and you know, sexually
1:15:40
kind of perverse to have him the only time we
1:15:43
see him killing men on screen, he's using something that
1:15:46
is slightly phallic. Yeah, and by slightly I mean completely phallic.
1:15:50
He's shooting them in the head.
1:15:52
Speaker 5: Yeah.
1:15:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's again like he he's well, I guess he
1:15:56
kills those two children, but you know again, like I
1:15:58
don't think he would consider them men because.
1:15:59
Speaker 5: The vulnerable just like women.
1:16:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it does beggar the question of what
1:16:05
what was he doing in between all of these because yeah,
1:16:08
he didn't just do five incidents worth of killing people,
1:16:11
No fucking way, that's not possible. Like he hints at
1:16:15
as much.
1:16:16
Speaker 5: You don't start with the uma Thurman killer.
1:16:18
Speaker 1: Well, that's the question I have for you, is that
1:16:21
the start it's not right, not at all, Okay, I
1:16:23
was making sure that that's my perception is like this
1:16:27
is the first one he wanted to start telling him about.
1:16:29
Speaker 5: Yep.
1:16:30
Speaker 1: But it's like selective, right, Like there was things he
1:16:32
was doing, like he probably when he was in college
1:16:35
was raping and murdering women and the dorms, like you
1:16:38
know what I mean, Like he was probably like God
1:16:40
only knows what he how prolific this guy was like,
1:16:43
and again, like it's clear that in a lot of ways,
1:16:46
like this guy might have been Satan's own serial killer
1:16:49
because he was being given carte blanche, like that cop
1:16:52
somehow didn't fucking realize this guy's a serial killer. He's
1:16:56
standing in this woman's house after this woman disappeared, Like
1:16:59
in a lot of ways, it does feel like there
1:17:01
were supernatural entities at work keeping him in kind of play.
1:17:06
And again it's not made clear, but if Virgil exists,
1:17:10
and Heaven exists and Hell exists, that means Satan exists,
1:17:13
and who knows if he was getting involved, but it
1:17:15
would lead me to believe that once again there is
1:17:19
there might be bigger forces at work. But it once
1:17:22
again goes to stands to reason that yeah, Jack is
1:17:25
a repugnant serial killer all the way down and say
1:17:29
the least and yeah, and he and it's and Satan,
1:17:31
and Satan would have nothing but love for.
1:17:33
Speaker 5: Someone like him exactly fully embraced.
1:17:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, fully, he would fully embrace it. But to your point, like,
1:17:38
what was this guy doing in between right, the terrible
1:17:41
things that he was doing, the non artistic endeavors that
1:17:44
he had, Because that's the thing, you know, he was
1:17:46
that that the compulsion was not kept under wraps that easily,
1:17:51
and he was clearly unable to keep it together for
1:17:53
that long as most of these guys are, like, you know,
1:17:56
it's just a matter of time with like BTK. You
1:17:58
know he waited a while, I hope, but then he
1:18:00
eventually came back. Their egos get the better of them,
1:18:03
their compulsions get the better of them.
1:18:05
Speaker 5: So absolutely true.
1:18:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, and hey, Jeremy Davies is in this movie Guys
1:18:09
for like five always, I know, so random. This movie
1:18:13
has like ten people in it too, on top of
1:18:14
everything else, Like yeah, Jeremy Davies, Riley Kyo, Uma Thurman.
1:18:19
Speaker 5: I so we've mentioned her a few times. Why did
1:18:22
Uma Thurman take this? Was it literally just to work
1:18:24
with Lars von Trier once?
1:18:26
Speaker 1: I don't know, I I I couldn't. I couldn't figure
1:18:30
that out. Then, I don't know, Like I don't think
1:18:32
anyone's asked her like that would be a I would
1:18:35
like to know why. I would assume, like, if you
1:18:37
have the opportunity to work with larsvon Treer, you work
1:18:39
with fucking Lars von Trier. Like that's my thinking. If
1:18:42
I were her, I'd be like, I'd want to work
1:18:43
with Lars von Trier. And look, you don't have to
1:18:45
do what Charlotte Rampling did for Nimple.
1:18:48
Speaker 5: Maniac the Cell for another masterpiece though a wonderful movie.
1:18:51
Speaker 1: Two minutes of movie, you know what I mean? Effectively,
1:18:54
you know, like you're not having to be, you know,
1:18:56
saddled with all of the overwhelming shit constantly that Willem
1:18:59
Defoe did and Anti Christ. You know, this is like
1:19:02
maybe the best way to work with Lars von Truer
1:19:04
is like a very limited capacity.
1:19:08
Speaker 5: Could you please come on screen and dive very quickly?
1:19:10
Speaker 1: Thanks dam getting hit in the head with a jack.
1:19:12
I love this movie. I don't know what that says
1:19:15
about me.
1:19:15
Speaker 5: Yeah, I do too, and we didn't spend enough time
1:19:18
on it. But the whole the scene where the OCD
1:19:22
truly comes into play is I think the catalyst of
1:19:26
like the depth of this film, because up to that
1:19:29
point he just feels like, uh, run of the mill,
1:19:33
true crime sociopath, nothing crazy, But then like the crazy
1:19:38
obsession of man, did I leave something on the ground
1:19:42
and I'm gonna get caught? Did I leave something? I
1:19:43
gotta go clean this four more times? And then the
1:19:46
hilarity after that of dragging the body and the blood
1:19:50
going everywhere is so blackly darkly comedic. It is such
1:19:55
a random tonal change. After all of that, he's just
1:20:00
like brutal to be brutal in that scene, this woman
1:20:04
had no reason to be killed, and he's like, yeah,
1:20:06
let's just let's just go take her ound. I see
1:20:08
an opportunity, let's fucking do it.
1:20:10
Speaker 1: Why not? Yeah, I do love the juxtaposition of he
1:20:15
spends all this time worrying about the blood and worrying
1:20:18
about the OCD and worrying about their being blood under
1:20:20
the counters or under the table or under the stool,
1:20:23
and then he just you know, attaches her body in
1:20:25
the back of his car and drags behind him, not
1:20:27
thinking anything of it, Like it's it's it's that statement
1:20:31
that you hear about serial killers where it's like, you know,
1:20:33
they're so well prepared and they're so well thought out
1:20:35
until they forget where they put the fucking screwdriver, you
1:20:37
know what I mean, And then it's like, well, that
1:20:39
screwdriver had your name carved into a dumb fuck, like
1:20:43
good job. That's the thing I love about this movie
1:20:46
is Jack. Because he's OCD. He gets away with everything.
1:20:49
It is that one moment where it feels like satanic
1:20:52
intervention that he should have been caught with the rain
1:20:56
and the blood. But here's the thing, somehow, I believe
1:20:59
even if that had been the case, he still would
1:21:00
have gotten away with up until he didn't. I mean again, like,
1:21:02
he gets away with it until he doesn't. And to
1:21:04
be fair, even the people that know him don't even
1:21:07
know the depths of what he's doing because that the
1:21:09
guy sp the the gentleman. He gets the cloak from
1:21:13
They don't even know what they're fucking confronting him about.
1:21:16
They're like, you were robbing people, like robbery, What the
1:21:19
fuck are you talking about? No fucking robbery. He's murdering.
1:21:22
See nothing, that's nothing compared to what he's doing. Yeah, yeah,
1:21:26
yeah yeah. I really really like this movie, and I
1:21:30
really appreciate the amalgamation of things into a serial killer
1:21:36
that I can again the OCD, I can recognize some
1:21:39
of the you know, some of the BTK or the
1:21:40
Gary Ridgeway or like again because he exists. Again. The
1:21:43
thing that I feel like, maybe this is me, the
1:21:46
one gripe I have with the movie sets itself in
1:21:49
reality all the way up until mentioning other serial killer?
1:21:52
Why don't you mention other serial That always seems weird
1:21:55
to me? And I wanted to ask you if you
1:21:57
find there to be a reason that Laras Montreer did
1:21:59
that and your own head cannon or perception of the movie,
1:22:03
but why does he not mention any other cereal? Like
1:22:05
there's no mentioning of Ted Bundy or I mean these guys,
1:22:08
I mean, maybe they don't exist in this world, but
1:22:10
it would seem weird to me to not mention them,
1:22:13
and that Jack wouldn't mention them because I mean, look,
1:22:16
even bt K knew about John. I mean, they all
1:22:18
know about each other, and in a lot of ways,
1:22:20
they're all chasing after each other and this weird downhill,
1:22:23
like disgusting race of kind of depravity. But like, why
1:22:26
don't they mention it in this movie?
1:22:28
Speaker 5: Is it?
1:22:28
Speaker 1: Because? Is it because instead of mentioning it, they just
1:22:31
invoke them instead kind of.
1:22:34
Speaker 5: The way I've always taken it. But the bigger one
1:22:36
is just he's kind of conceded those are all lesser people.
1:22:41
Why does he need to bring him up? Bring him up?
1:22:43
Why do they need to take space in his mind?
1:22:45
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel I feel like, to be fair,
1:22:47
he's the kind of asshole that would bring it up
1:22:49
just to just to bemoan them and to belittle them, right,
1:22:53
Like he's so egotistical, he's so ego Like that's my point,
1:22:56
Like he's so egotistical. He calls a woman simple who's
1:23:00
clearly not. I mean, but he's unwilling to mention. I
1:23:03
don't know, like that for me is the one thing.
1:23:05
I'm just like, I kind of wish that they had
1:23:07
had because I mean, you and I both know that
1:23:08
would have been an interesting conversation to be part of.
1:23:12
To hear would be what does a serial killer like
1:23:15
this guy think of other serial killers in the world
1:23:18
as well? Like, that's inherently something I would like to
1:23:21
see and hear, wouldn't you like, again, given we've heard
1:23:24
everything else that this guy has to say about everything else,
1:23:28
wouldn't you like to hear what he has to say
1:23:29
about his contemporaries as it were? And that's the thing
1:23:33
that's the one missed opportunity because I feel like that
1:23:35
would have further solidified this movie and I would and
1:23:39
I again, I'd like to know what Lars von Truer
1:23:41
would have to say about it, because ultimately, that's his
1:23:43
unique perspective on things. Is really what we're here for, Like,
1:23:47
that's really what this movie is ultimately about, is getting
1:23:50
to see Lars von Tru's perspective on serial killers. I
1:23:53
just wish we could have seen Lars von Truer, Lars
1:23:56
Wontru's serial killer's perspective on serial killers the sense. Yeah,
1:24:01
and I mean it is weird, right, it is weird.
1:24:04
It's just I mean, again, we could go with your
1:24:06
head cannon which I think is a perfectly suitable answer,
1:24:10
but it does feel a little like, well, you're not
1:24:14
gonna mention the real guys, right, But I mean again,
1:24:19
like if you just want to go with my answer
1:24:20
of like well we're just going to invoke them, or
1:24:23
he's or or or or if you really want to
1:24:27
get nuts with it, Uh, Jack is meant to represent
1:24:30
all serial killers broad.
1:24:32
Speaker 5: The embodiment of all of them.
1:24:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's so, So why invoke because there are no
1:24:37
other ones? He is the only one, and so in
1:24:40
him being the only one, And again, like not to
1:24:42
say this, like don't take this shit literally. We're talking
1:24:45
in like a a literal sense. We're not talking in
1:24:48
a literal sense. We're talking in a figurative sense. Here,
1:24:50
if he's meant to embody all serial killers, then we
1:24:54
do see him covering a lot of the bases of
1:24:56
the kinds of things that different serial killers, because this
1:24:59
is the thing, he's so unrealistic as a serial killer.
1:25:02
He has like infinite mos. That's not a real thing,
1:25:06
Like he's not a real serial killer, no serial Like
1:25:09
if there was a serial killer that had this MANYMS,
1:25:11
he would never be caught.
1:25:12
Speaker 5: No literally, especially with how literally obsessive and compulsive he is,
1:25:17
and covers his tracks on everything.
1:25:19
Speaker 1: Right, and and he doesn't kill anyone the same way
1:25:22
twice is what it feels like. Yep, you know he's
1:25:24
the Chris Jericho of serial killers, the Man of a
1:25:26
Thousand Holes. I guess that's Steve Malenko. Like there's a
1:25:29
I mean, like, no one way that he kills anybody
1:25:31
in this movie is the same as any other way
1:25:33
that he's killed them, And you have to wonder if
1:25:34
that's always been the case, because again, like his compulsion
1:25:37
and his OCD just doesn't allow that to be the case.
1:25:40
But yeah, I do wonder if the lack of inclusion
1:25:43
of other serial killers is just to further reinforce that,
1:25:47
Like this guy is just kind of the physical embodiment,
1:25:51
holistically of every single serial killer that's ever been, will
1:25:54
be or.
1:25:55
Speaker 5: What Yes, he is d all of the above.
1:25:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, he is. Just he is the serial killer it
1:26:00
made flesh and that's walking around. And again, if you're
1:26:04
if you're going to have someone literal literally in a
1:26:07
literary capacity, judge them. Who better than you know, Dante's Virgil.
1:26:13
Who better to judge you than effectively judging yourself? Really
1:26:17
because that's what Dante's Inferno is really about. But to
1:26:20
have an external version of it with we didn't even
1:26:22
talk about Bruno gans by the way, as a Virgil,
1:26:25
who's just I mean man him and Matt Dillon. I
1:26:28
could listen to them talk all day, like just right,
1:26:30
they're so good together, like they're back and forth, is
1:26:33
just so great, and you know, Virgil is just kind
1:26:36
of irritated with him most of the movie. There's these
1:26:39
times where he's like, you know, I'm not gonna be
1:26:40
able to avoid a fucking entire refresher course on this
1:26:45
am I And it's like, yo, Jack can't even like
1:26:47
have any self awareness enough to know this guy doesn't
1:26:49
want to hear you explain everything to him, you clown.
1:26:53
But Bruno Ganz, I mean we didn't We literally haven't
1:26:55
talked about him at all in this entire episode. But
1:26:58
he's for as good as Matt Dylan is. Bruno Ganz
1:27:01
had to be as good and he is as good
1:27:03
they're both. I mean, this is a this in a
1:27:06
lot of ways, like could have just been a stage
1:27:08
play of a serial killer talking to Virgil and trying
1:27:12
to convince him, you know, I mean again, like you
1:27:14
could break it down that far you could, you could,
1:27:17
I mean again.
1:27:19
Speaker 5: Would be wild.
1:27:20
Speaker 1: What about a musical version? It already has it the
1:27:22
row Jack is the fucking last song. It's like Shrek.
1:27:25
It already is a built in outro song.
1:27:27
Speaker 5: Right, need to get on it?
1:27:30
Speaker 1: Man? Can you imagine, mister von Trier, We'd love to
1:27:33
adapt the house that Jack built?
1:27:34
Speaker 5: How much the licensing sir?
1:27:36
Speaker 1: Fuck damn American Psycho the fuckings fucking musical yep. And
1:27:40
and I've gotta assume in the Chaboen fallon scene that
1:27:45
jacket he's wearing is a direct reference to the vinyl
1:27:50
jacket that Christian Bale wears on christ Psycho. It has
1:27:53
to be. There's so much, there's there's this like I
1:27:56
would say, like, if you're into serial killer stuff, this
1:27:58
is the ultimate serial killer movie, really is, Like, I
1:28:00
don't think there's any like if no one ever made
1:28:04
another serial killer movie ever again and this was it,
1:28:07
I don't think you would be other than the conversation
1:28:11
about the real life aspect of it. I don't think
1:28:14
that this movie would leave you wanting And if you
1:28:16
are up to snuff on your serial killer like I
1:28:20
won say lore, but like mythology and low. I mean
1:28:22
it is lare at this point the way it's talked
1:28:25
about by everybody on the internet, because again, they're just story.
1:28:29
None of us experienced it. That's the thing that's hard
1:28:31
to understand. Like none of us experienced it. The likelihood
1:28:34
any of us will is very low, so it is
1:28:36
just a story to us. Like the hard part is
1:28:38
reminding ourselves that real people are involved, which is why
1:28:41
it's so easy to watch a movie yep, And which
1:28:44
is why like for me, this is the ultimate serial
1:28:46
killer movie because I can watch this movie and not
1:28:48
feel bad because it's not a real person. Like he
1:28:52
is just every fucking serial killer rolled into one. And
1:28:56
that's what we're seeing. Let loose on screen for two
1:28:59
and a half hours. I could see this turned into
1:29:01
a TV show. I could see this turned into something else.
1:29:05
This could be any number of things, because what this
1:29:07
is is again like more the conversation about serial killers
1:29:11
and serial killing and less about you know, well, I
1:29:14
want to watch a movie that's gory and gross for
1:29:16
two and a half hours, because don't come to it
1:29:18
for that, Like, this is very much not that this
1:29:20
movie is challenging, it's just challenging in a very different way,
1:29:23
and it's asking you as the audience to have a
1:29:26
difficult conversation with yourself about I don't know humanity and
1:29:30
why human beings do terrible things to each other and
1:29:33
should we build a house out of human beings?
1:29:35
Speaker 5: The house built with jecks.
1:29:37
Speaker 1: I mean, I love that. Virgil at the end of
1:29:39
the movie is like, hey, let me nudge you into
1:29:41
the final moment of you damning yourself for good. Yeah,
1:29:44
because it feels like, by the end of the movie,
1:29:46
the only way Jack is going to hell is if
1:29:48
he builds that house and then the portal materializes underneath it.
1:29:52
That's like, you know, the magnum opus. The singular moment,
1:29:56
the climax of the story is that creation of the house,
1:29:59
and that's what and the unreality really sets in because
1:30:02
we have these cops trying to get in to get him,
1:30:05
and it takes seemingly forever because he's able to construct
1:30:08
a house made out of corpses in the time that
1:30:11
it takes for the cops to get to and it's
1:30:13
like it would take you know, like it almost feels
1:30:16
like he just dies and he's already dead, you know what.
1:30:19
I mean, like he the the creation of the house
1:30:23
and everything is taking place already in hell, and he
1:30:26
got shot by the cops like through the door or
1:30:28
something and didn't realize it. The tony soprano of it
1:30:31
all like you're already dead, pal, like you didn't even
1:30:34
realize you died. It was quiet, it was silent, Like
1:30:37
that's the way if I were to literally perceive the
1:30:40
end of the movie. That's my perception is sometime in
1:30:43
between him getting back with the full metal jacket round
1:30:46
and I mean again, like maybe he died in that
1:30:49
trailer even like who knows, Like, but I don't think
1:30:51
he's alive. Yeh, yeah, I don't think he's alive when
1:30:55
he's constructing the house, like he's already dead, Like he's
1:30:58
already like he's and he's just judged himself externally, his conscience.
1:31:02
Speaker 5: Starting the gym.
1:31:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, so yeah, I again, like, I'm I'm glad you
1:31:06
picked this movie. I would have never talked about it
1:31:08
otherwise because it's a movie I like too much to cover.
1:31:11
Oh That's how it goes with me. For the longest time,
1:31:14
I wasn't covering movies that motivated me personally. But I'm
1:31:18
kind of I've taken a different stance recently, obviously, because
1:31:21
I think for me that's more interesting than not. But
1:31:24
I had a real hesitation to covering movies that I
1:31:26
like because I worry that I won't have anything critical
1:31:29
to say about them. But I don't think that's the case.
1:31:31
Speaker 5: I mean, yeah, there's a lot in it, and again,
1:31:34
like I don't know, it's not even just not critical,
1:31:37
it's also who the hell do you recommend this to?
1:31:41
This isn't a movie that I don't even feel comfortable
1:31:44
like recommending this. This was difficult to even say. Chris
1:31:46
Let's record about this, I would.
1:31:48
Speaker 1: Say you could suggest this movie to anybody with the
1:31:50
caveat that you give him a full explanation as to
1:31:53
what it is ahead of time, right, Because I think
1:31:56
to your point, like larsmon Treer's stuff is so polarizing,
1:31:58
I don't know who this is going to resonate with, right.
1:32:01
But if I explain to you what this is ahead
1:32:03
of time, and your interest is peaked, and you get
1:32:05
into it and you start watching it and you're not
1:32:07
running away at top speed, I don't. I mean, look,
1:32:10
I've shown my parents' worse movies than this one. In
1:32:13
terms of the subject material like Midsummer or Talk to
1:32:16
Me or even The Fly, like that movie is so
1:32:19
much more like disgusting and off putting, like but like
1:32:22
this movie is more upsetting and disturbing and every way
1:32:26
in every way, like it's trafficking more and like yeah
1:32:29
in that and so like I don't know, like in
1:32:31
a lot of ways, like I would say, the person
1:32:33
I would suggest this to could be anybody, really, I
1:32:36
just I think if you're interestingly because again, like serial
1:32:38
killers and stuff like that, like that's like a lot
1:32:41
of people are into that.
1:32:42
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think you really got to know somebody first
1:32:44
before you recommend this.
1:32:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, this is not this is not beginner cinema.
1:32:48
But I would say this is my favorite larsmont Treer movie.
1:32:51
Speaker 5: Ooh, I have said that now that I've watched a
1:32:55
few more. I don't know.
1:32:56
Speaker 1: He I think it's such a surerial of this movie.
1:32:59
Just I with it way more than I drive with
1:33:01
any of his other subject curials. You know what I mean,
1:33:04
I'm already here, I'm halfway here already. He didn't. He's
1:33:07
not having to work that hard to get me through
1:33:09
the door. Specifically, kind of like, oh, you have to
1:33:13
work that hard man. That scene where he's standing outside
1:33:16
of Chabau in Fallon's house is so off right, I'm insure,
1:33:21
like why did she let him in? It's like it
1:33:24
just it boggles my mind. It boggles my mind. Yeah,
1:33:28
Like it's he's so pathetic that I think there's like
1:33:30
maybe this weird maternal thing too, where it's like they see.
1:33:34
Speaker 5: Him as like lost child.
1:33:38
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I mean again he does the Ted Bundy
1:33:41
thing where he you know, pretends to be injured. I
1:33:43
mean that's the buffalo bill of it all.
1:33:45
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, god, and he does it will.
1:33:47
Speaker 1: Yeah my god. This Yeah, the man Matt Dylan. Like
1:33:50
the fact that Matt Dylan didn't get nominated for an
1:33:52
Oscar for this movie is a bit obscene. Speaking of obscene,
1:33:56
that's obscene. He carries this movie. And also I do
1:33:59
appreciate larsvon Trier just going full like art house at
1:34:02
the end of the movie. I would say the movie's
1:34:03
not an art house film until last thirty minute and
1:34:06
then the Katabasis. The Journey through Hell epilogue is straight
1:34:11
up uh art house, art house nonsense even, but in
1:34:14
like a like a kooky, wacky like larswan Truer way
1:34:17
where he has you know, the uh oh my god.
1:34:20
The thing that always cracks me up. I always forget
1:34:22
is that the bark of Dante fucking painting that they
1:34:25
like recreate, which is like so bizarre, and this is like,
1:34:29
let we'll just take the five minutes to have them
1:34:31
recreating the static image. It's so strange. But again, like
1:34:36
because we really haven't talked about like and I think
1:34:38
this is probably a good as good as spot to
1:34:40
kind of bring a full circle as any but the
1:34:43
mixed medium of this movie, like there's chalkboard animation at
1:34:47
one point, there's still imagery like painting recreation. At one
1:34:52
point there is like I wouldn't say like like filmic
1:34:56
collages are being used with like narration over them. Like
1:34:59
there's so much going on, and the movie is such
1:35:03
a like it's not just a film. It's like it's
1:35:05
almost it reminds me a lot of ways of like JFK.
1:35:08
It's like a talking head film. You know, there's like
1:35:10
cutaways to other things going on, and it's like it's
1:35:13
it's like we're inside this guy's mind and we're seeing
1:35:16
the things that he's thinking of. When he's talking about.
1:35:19
And the only time we don't see that is at
1:35:21
the end of the movie, where it's again we're seeing
1:35:25
Virgil talking about those things and it's not Yeah, which
1:35:29
is so wild because again, like it's now the end
1:35:32
of the movie is a complete POV shift and now
1:35:35
it's more like a movie and less like this kind
1:35:38
of recounting of the story of my life. So yeah, man,
1:35:41
this the mixed medium of it all, it almost makes
1:35:44
it like again like it that for me is though,
1:35:46
would be the thing that makes the film hard to suggest,
1:35:51
not the subject material or the subject matter, but the
1:35:54
way the film is presented. I feel like is would
1:35:57
be hard for me to suggest because I feel like
1:35:59
some people watches me like what the fuck am I want?
1:36:01
What is going on here? Like we're having cutaways to
1:36:05
shit and we're doing all this wild stuff. Like I
1:36:08
feel like that would be the thing that's harder for
1:36:09
people to wrap their head arounds than the serial killer
1:36:12
aspect of it, because there is this literal, like art
1:36:15
house film attached to the end of this movie and
1:36:18
there's all this weird, interstitial cutaway stuff that just either
1:36:22
you're onboard with it or you're not. But if you're not, Like,
1:36:25
you're probably gonna be annoyed in the first five minutes
1:36:27
of the movie, because that's one of the movies, like
1:36:30
Bag of Tricks, that it goes back to a lot
1:36:32
is showing we literally see Lars von Trier films at
1:36:35
the end of the movie. It's that meta, we're seeing
1:36:37
his own film. We see Antichrist in this movie. Yeah,
1:36:40
so Lars won Trier exists in this universe or again
1:36:43
like or this is just again not a real story
1:36:46
that we're being told, but a story that's being used
1:36:49
to convey something else, which is what I think the
1:36:51
whole point of this movie is. Is this Lars von
1:36:54
Trier having a very interesting conversation about what it means
1:36:57
to be an artist, Yep, what it means to make something,
1:37:01
what it means to create, what it means to destroy,
1:37:04
and also what it means to put yourself out there
1:37:07
to be judged by other people. Because to create art, well,
1:37:10
you could create a podcast and never release it, but
1:37:12
then no one's gonna listen to it, and then you
1:37:14
will not have any feedback whatsoever, and what what does
1:37:18
that mean for your art if you're not willing to
1:37:20
share it with others and to be and to judge
1:37:22
and to be judged, and then to judge yourself consequently
1:37:25
as well, because that's the ultimate, you know, kind of
1:37:27
irony of the story is Jack is ultimately creating his
1:37:30
own house and building his own coffin and nailing it
1:37:33
shut on himself and closing the door on it. He
1:37:36
just doesn't realize it because he is too egotistic. If
1:37:40
it were anybody else, they would have realized it. If
1:37:41
it were Dante, he would have realized it because he
1:37:44
literally did.
1:37:45
Speaker 5: Yeah, this is a This is a journey through and
1:37:47
through and more than one, it interspersed in between each other.
1:37:52
I love everything about this.
1:37:53
Speaker 1: I'm I'm, I'm right there with you. This is a
1:37:56
there's a lot going on. But I think for for me,
1:37:58
I would prefer to watch him movie that's gonna challenge
1:38:01
me versus a movie that's just asking very little of me.
1:38:04
Because like I said, I've seen this movie a handful
1:38:06
of times and I'm not sure I still get it,
1:38:08
But every time I watch it, I take something away
1:38:10
different from it, and I think for me, that's it.
1:38:12
That's an exciting thing as a film watcher is watching
1:38:15
a movie that I enjoy and every time I watch
1:38:18
it getting something different out of it.
1:38:20
Speaker 5: So I've seen this a few times now, and every
1:38:22
time I'm so not excited to watch it, and yet
1:38:25
every time I walk away going, damn, I really love
1:38:28
this movie.
1:38:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, it brings the mood down. It's definitely like a
1:38:32
it's not an uplifting film. But by the end of it,
1:38:35
the movie does I mean, look, the movie sends you
1:38:37
out on a high note. Yeah, it does. Like I'll
1:38:40
give the movie credit where credits do? It sends you
1:38:41
out on a high note. The movie ending with hit
1:38:44
the Road Jack really is just That's why I'm like,
1:38:46
this is a joke, Like that's the aristocrats of like
1:38:49
that A like, yeah, that is the.
1:38:50
Speaker 5: World is better without him.
1:38:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, the world is better without him. And you know,
1:38:54
we are better off without him. And he doesn't deserve anything,
1:38:58
and what he gets exactly what he did, which is
1:39:00
eternal damnation at the lowest circle of hellnge. Here's the
1:39:04
other thing. He wasn't even supposed to be down there, right,
1:39:08
Like one wonders who was supposed to be down there? Again? Again,
1:39:12
if you take Virgil at his word, he wasn't supposed
1:39:14
to be down there. I contend that Virgil took him
1:39:16
down there because Virgil knew this motherfucker is gonna try
1:39:19
to get out of it, and this is the only
1:39:21
place that he can get out of it is at
1:39:23
the lowest, because again, in in Inferno, you have to
1:39:26
go all the way to the bottom to come all
1:39:28
the way up to the top, and so he has
1:39:30
to go all the way down to the valley of
1:39:32
Hell to go to the peak. And so he knew
1:39:35
by taking him down there, that's the only place he
1:39:36
can try to get out of it. But I like
1:39:38
to believe Virgil was like he, I know you're gonna
1:39:43
try to do it and there, and I know because
1:39:45
you're such an egotistical shithead like ye, and that there's
1:39:48
and you know what, good, here's the rope, go hang yourself.
1:39:51
And I again, when that fucking hit the Rodjack starts playing,
1:39:55
I'm like, in Lars Wantruer, I think that's what he
1:39:57
was getting at. Fuck them, they're making their own beds,
1:39:59
let them lie in it.
1:40:00
Speaker 5: We're better off.
1:40:00
Speaker 1: Yet we're better off for it that they're gone.
1:40:03
Speaker 5: And then literally like it, waving goodbye with that song.
1:40:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean, look, people that are. Look, I
1:40:09
think the thing that's reassuring, and if you want to
1:40:12
believe the world of Lars von Trier is that people
1:40:14
that are terrible do get what they deserve in the end. Yeah,
1:40:18
And I'd like to live in that universe because the
1:40:20
lack of accountability in the universe that we live in
1:40:23
now is frustrating, infuriating to a degree that's hard to
1:40:27
have any reasonable conversation about it anymore. So I'd like
1:40:31
to live in a world where someone like this, even
1:40:33
if he does exist, is not allowed to get away
1:40:37
with him, even if his judgment is passed at a
1:40:40
biblical level, you can't get away from this. You've been
1:40:43
able to get away from everything else, but this is
1:40:45
the one time you're going to be held accountable. And
1:40:47
I think what's funny is it takes him going all
1:40:50
the way to the bottom of hell to be held accountable.
1:40:53
But sometimes that's what it takes. And good, Yeah, very good.
1:40:57
Speaker 5: Hit the road, motherfucker and done recording.
1:41:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll just leave it there. We don't have to
1:41:03
plug anything.
1:41:05
Speaker 5: I'm plugging all up for good. Yeah, you have it,
1:41:07
so Li