Element Of Crime (DVD)
APPROX. 104 MINS. - PROD. YEAR: 1984 - MPA RATING: NR
" The experience itself may be all that von Trier is trying to provoke, but it isn't enough.
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You say you're looking for something different, bizarre, macabre, creepy, and perhaps a little distasteful? Consider "The Element of Crime," the first feature film (1984) from Danish writer and director of the far-out, Lars von Trier ("Breaking the Waves," "The Kingdom," "Zentropa," "Dancer in the Dark"). It's an extremely murky crime drama with a twist, an exaggerated attempt at film noir, often slow moving but sometimes rewarding, too, especially in the expressionistic conjuring of its images. It's definitely not your average thriller and leaves a lot of plot questions unanswered, but it is just as definitely worth a look on DVD, if only as a rental.
Under hypnosis a police detective named Fisher (Michael Elphick) recounts his experiences of the previous year investigating a series of particularly grisly murders. It's never very clear why he's seeing a therapist (Ahmed El Shenawi), except that possibly he's lost his memory or his mind, but the hypnosis angle gives filmmaker von Trier an opportunity to present his story line as a recollection, a dream, and, thus, to provide a dreamlike visual style that often borders on the surreal.
Fisher explains that he had left police work in Europe some thirteen years earlier and was in virtual exile in Egypt when he was called back to duty by a pair of old friends on the force, Kramer (Herold Wells), now a chief of police, and Osborne (Esmond Knight), a retired criminologist and teacher. Because of his expertise, Fisher is asked to investigate the murders and mutilations of several young girls, apparently the work of a serial killer bent on destroying girls selling lottery tickets.
At first the landscape is dark and forbidding, shown in dim, muted colors, mostly shades of sepia with the occasional bright color thrown in. Dying, drowning horses are a recurring theme, and the setting suggests a vision of hell, or a very bad nightmare. The intimation is that the time is somewhere in the near future, and Europe appears to be in the throes of some kind of post-nuclear holocaust. The ecology of the continent seems to have been disrupted, it's now perpetual night, and this bleak visual tone is suggestive of films like "Blade Runner" and parts of the first "Terminator."
Police headquarters lies in ruins, a good part of it submerged in water. Looking through the police files, Fisher finds that his mentor, old Osborne, had been on the track of an identical serial killer some years before, a fellow named Harry Grey, suspected of committing four previous lotto murders. Osborne had also written a book, "The Element of Crime," in which he detailed how to find a criminal by getting inside the criminal's mind and discovering his motives by constructing a psychological profile of the person.
Obtaining a "trailing report" that shows where the police had followed Grey years before, Fisher decides to retrace the old suspect's footsteps. But Osborne tells Fisher that Grey no longer exists, that he died in a fiery car crash. If that's so, who's the guy sneaking around in the shadows following Fisher? Fisher isn't so sure Grey died in the crash and becomes obsessed trying to find him. He goes to Grey's old haunts, meets Grey's old girlfriend, Kim (Meme Lai), and brings her along on his quest, tries to get into Grey's brain, and tries, in the end, to become Grey. As he does so, his headaches increase and before long he appears to be losing his mind.
The film raises more questions than it answers with its peculiar, ambiguous visions. What is the meaning of the overcast weather, the perpetual night? Is it really a post-holocaust nightmare or just the nightmare of Fisher's imagination? Is it symbolic of a decaying Europe? Why did Osborne retire from the police force, and why does he appear to be afraid to reveal more about Harry Grey? And who is this mysterious Harry Grey, anyhow, whose presence is so reminiscent of the Harry Lime character in "The Third Man," another criminal who was supposed to have died but didn't? What do all the dying horses represent, and how are they connected with a knight's chess piece, a horse, left at the scene of each crime? Who are the strange, shaven-headed young men being rounded up by the police, some of them jumping to their deaths? And what about the ending, so surprising, so seemingly straightforward, yet so uncertain, too? Just what was Fisher doing with the child just before the story's climax?
