234 - The Element of Crime, 1984, Denmark. Dir. Lars von Trier.
You know this might not be the Savoy but we do try to keep the rooms clean.
So says that bald-pated hotel clerk to Fisher when Fisher checks in.
No, he is not Alan Cuming in Eyes Wide Shut. He is not Tim Roth in 4 Rooms. He is not Screamin' Jay Hawkins in Mystery Train. He is not Ellen Corby in Vertigo.
He is Lars von Trier himself. Lean. Young looking. Transforming his appearance with the shift of his body. From sexually ambiguous to aryan-like.
He looks nothing like he does today. Nothing like he did in the film after this one. He is a chameleon. A shape-shifter. And did you even know he was an actor? There was a time he acted in all his films. And then a time when he stopped.
The Element of Crime is a post-apocalyptic crime drama. Among other things.
It stars Michael Elphick as Fisher. And Fisher reminds us of Rick Deckard. Maybe because the film reminds us of Blade Runner (1982).
But Fisher is not Deckard.
And Harry Grey is not Harry Lime. Nor is he David Gray. David Gray was the character in Carl Theodor Dreyer's Vampyr, which we have recently watched, and Harry Lime was the man in Carol Reed's The Third Man (1949), whom Joseph Cotten's Holly Martins was seeking. He was played by Orson Welles.
Fisher is looking for Harry Grey the way Martins was looking for Harry Lime, and you can feel it throughout The Element of Crime even as you are reminded of Blade Runner as you watch it.
This film is not a dream but a hypnotic trance. Our protagonist detective is not talking to us in voice-over narration but to his hypnotist, the Cairo therapist played by Ahmed El Shenawi, who had played in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom that same year.
Fisher is in Cairo. In Egypt. And he has been called back to Europe. It has been thirteen years since he has been there. He goes to the therapist for help. His therapist hypnotizes him. He tells him his story.
The Lotto Murders.
Someone is killing the ticket sellers.
So they stick together.
But that does not help
The killer leaves talismans at the sites of the crimes.
Fisher has come to solve the crime.
He is using the techniques advanced by his mentor years before. Osborne is his mentor. He wrote a book called The Element of Crime. Now he considers it dangerous. People criticize him as being a man of theory.
It is dangerous in that it advises the young detective to get into the mind of the killer in order to track him down.
And when he gets into his mind . . . well, you can imagine.
The atmosphere is dark. And raining. And broken down dirty. And hearts are cold.
The film is filmed with high-pressure sodium lamps. It is not sepia, though some have mistaken it. But it is enough.
A donkey struggles to stand up.
Sheep bleat'.
Lemur in the drain grate.
Water, Water, everywhere,
But not a drop to drink.
Kramer is The Chief of Police. He himself says that Fisher had more promise than him, but now he has the world by the balls, the short and curlies.
Yes, but.
Who is Harry Grey?
Where is Harry Grey?
It sometimes helps to study the geography of a crime.
And a three-year old tailing report.
Four murders happened here.
The murder is for the sake of a pattern.
The geography will turn out to coincide with the letter H.
Fisher finds the missing tailing report.
They found the body behind Frau Gerda's whorehouse.
The site of the Lotto Murders.
Halberstadt
the Hotel Schatz
Harry Grey's locker
* * * * *
Tranceformer: A Portrait of Lars von Trier
A provocation's purpose is to get people to think.
If you subject people to a provocation you allow them the possibility of their own interpretation.
He is a playful rascal.
Absolute opponent to all kinds of intellectual authority.
I have a "troll shard" in my eye.
The Snow Queen by Hans Anderson
My own life is a provocation.
Life is a circus.
At age 12 he played the lead role in a Danish/Swedish TV series.
I had a very free upbringing. And according to me, it was too free, as it is such a cause of anxieties.
The child has to be its own authority. When there's no one to say, Do this or Do that, go to the dentist, go to bed, they have to be their own authority, and the difficulties that arise from simply going to bed were incredibly traumatic for me.
It's a lot for a little kid to decide for himself. I missed the love an authority that defines parameters can bring.
Dante, The Divine Comedy
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