So now that Lars von Trier has dropped his two-part sex opus “Nymphomaniac,” what’s his next move (besides prepping the director’s cuts of those films)? As always, the filmmaker is not only keeping us on our toes, but excited too, as it seems he’s getting ready to dip back into genre fare.
According to Danish filmmaker Kristian Levring (whose “The Salvation” starring Mads Mikkelsen is premiering at Cannes), who worked as a script consultant on “Antichrist,” von Trier is going horror. “I’ve always thought that Lars would be able to do a fantastic horror movie,” he told Soundvenue (via Indiewire). “And I’ve told him so many times throughout the years, and in the end he said: ‘I want you to stop talking about it, so I’ll write it for you instead.’ ”
“It takes place in Detroit, and then there is the wordplay between Detroit and ‘destroyed,’ ” Levring added, noting that von Trier has started writing the script. “It’s about a man fighting his inner demons. That doesn’t tell that much, but that’s because we haven’t gotten any further so far.” He added “….it’s real horror. Of course, there is a psychological aspect, but it’s a real horror movie. That’s what we’re aiming for, at least.”
So yes, that sounds pretty promising even if it’s all in very early stages (the working title is “Detroit” which is likely to change). Of course, von Trier has gone down the path of the supernatural before, most notably with the Danish series “The Kingdom.” But don’t get too excited about von Trier shooting the movie in America. Even though he has set previous films like “Dogville” and “Manderlay” between U.S. borders, the director’s fear of flying will likely find him using a workaround for whatever he’s cooking up (though if there’s anyone we’d love anyone to shoot the decaying city on location, it would be von Trier).
And speaking of “The Kingdom,” it’s one of a handful of early works by von Trier that are getting digitally restored. Production company Zentropa has released a seven-minute featurette diving into the lengthy process of scanning the original film strips and re-editing the movies from scratch in order to preserve the director’s projects (trivia: “The Kingdom” was recorded on DigiBeta, a now defunct format). Check out the video below and pray those folks doing the work get upgraded to an office with windows.
