LisbethOvergaardNielsenPhd

tour de force. Although the film tells a love story, critics still termed it “cold”.
Focusing on the use of genre and the aesthetical picture style, it is examined how
Europa is constructed and wherein its coldness exists. How does Europa produce
its visual qualities and what ambitions does the film risk?
Chapter 4 deals with Breaking the Waves, which so far is the film by Lars von
Trier to attract the broadest audience. The analysis focuses on the film’s unusual
love story where effects of realism are coupled with irony and pathos.
Furthermore, the use of melodrama is examined in order to establish why Breaking
the Waves, contrary to Europa, succeeds in involving its audience emotionally, even
though the film makes use of pronounced irony and a rough, angular form.
Chapter 5 introduces Dogma 95, a joint project between Lars von Trier and
Thomas Vinterberg. The dogma manifest and the ten vows of chastity are the
focus of an analysis of The Idiots, Lars von Trier’s dogma film. The chapter
discusses the avant-garde claims and yet romantic thought of the dogma project.
Furthermore, The Idiots is analyzed with special reference to the ambiguous nature
of the film project, in which the hand-held austere style in a paradox way seems to
generate distance combined with a profound effect of realism, closeness and
authenticity.
With the musical Dancer in the Dark, which is examined in chapter 6, Lars
von Trier returns to an exploration of the genres and a test of how much the film
medium and especially the audience can bear. The chapter illuminates the film’s
exaggerated, mannered and excessive aesthetic, which occurs alongside the trivial
but heartbreaking story, in order to examine why the film so pronouncedly
divided its audience: it either repelled its viewer or caused him to dissolve into
tears. How does the musical work in Lars von Trier’s modern version, and what
kind of clichés does the film try to revive?
In chapter 7 Dogville undergoes the last film analysis in the thesis. The film is
the first work in a not yet finished USA-trilogy. Also this film is nurtured by its
transgressions in form, in that it turns its back on the contemporary ideals of
mainstream films and instead produces an anti filmic aesthetic. The analysis
focuses on this “anti filmic” expression, its minimalism and Verfremdung, and
examines how it is possible to make a film work, which takes place on a black
theatre stage using white chalk markings as stage effects. What signals does a film
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