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Lars von Trier made a cute stop-motion cartoon when he was 11. Somehow it’s still super creepy
06.16.2014
11:04 am
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My introduction to the work of Lars von Trier came by way of his brilliant supernatural mini-series The Kingdom—a kind of a Twin Peaks-style hospital drama in which Udo Kier has a terrifying role as a doomed baby from the netherworld. Still, Turen til Squashland… En Super Pølse Film , or Trip to Squash Land… A Super Sausage Film strikes me as an even creepier chronicle of childhood… maybe it’s the music?

The two-minute stop-motion short was created by von Trier (the “von” was adopted later) on a Super-8 camera when he was eleven. It’s technically quite impressive for a kid that age and ominously cheerful. There’s a bunny abduction and a sausage super-hero who I just don’t entirely trust. It seems worth noting that Trier had a non-normative childhood. His parents—who were lifestyle nudists—didn’t believe in punishment, but still managed to keep a distinct emotional distance from him. The controversial Danish director’s mother also told him on her deathbed that he was the product of an affair.

I’m not saying that’s the kind of upbringing necessary to produce a film like Antichrist, I’m just saying, it probably don’t hurt. And no, the final scene is not a prelude to Nymphomaniac, either. “Slut” means “The End” in Danish.
 

Posted by Amber Frost
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06.16.2014
11:04 am
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Lars von Trier, pornographer?
11.19.2010
03:05 pm
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Above, Katja Kean in Pink Prison, shot on the same prison set as Dancer in the Dark.
 
Although this is hardly a secret In Europe, few American fans of Oscar-nominated Danish director Lars von Trier are aware of the fact that the controversial Dogme auteur responsible for films like Antichrist, Breaking the Waves, Dancer in the Dark and Dogville, also produces porno films.

“High Art” porn, to be sure, von Trier’s company Zentropa has owned two subsidiary companies, first Puzzy Power, then Innocent Pictures, aimed at the elusive female/couples sex film market. The goal is/was to produce porn with mainstream cinema production values and their movies have few anatomical close-ups of female genitalia. A Puzzy Power manifesto laid out the original company’s aims and can be read here.

Nevertheless, they are hardcore fuck flicks, with two of them, Constance (1998) and Pink Prison (1999) starring Danish porn actress Katja Kean, who’s best described as Denmark’s Jenna Jameson (Kean, also called Katja K, is a crossover to the world of TV comedy and the lingerie business).

Lars von Trier himself is said to have little to do with the films, himself, except for signing off on them, and in a free-thinking country like Denmark, of course, pornography has never had the shame associated with it as in other countries. A 2005 film called All About Anna, starring mainstream Danish actress and singer, Gry Bay, and the third sex film produced by Zentropa, was their biggest success.

Innocent Pictures has also produced a hardcore gay feature, HotMen CoolBoyz, which starred bloody LA-based performance artist Ron Athey. It is the only hardcore gay porn film ever produced by a mainstream studio.

Posted by Richard Metzger
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11.19.2010
03:05 pm
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