Even at their most accessible (as in Breaking the Waves or Dancer in the Dark), the films of Danish director Lars von Trier are an acquired taste, appealing primarily to cinephiles and connoisseurs of the daringly unconventional. In Epidemic (1987), his second feature film, the director's Dogme aesthetic (a pared-down, back-to-basics film movement codified later in von Trier's career) can be viewed in its nascent form, alternating between grainy 16mm black-and-white film with unmanned cameras (for present-day scenes in which von Trier and screenwriter Niels Vorsel play themselves as they devise a screenplay about a devastating plague) and crisp, rich 35mm black-and-white employed for the fictional film they're making, about a mysterious epidemic that engulfs all of Europe. Crosscutting between fact and fiction, the digressive, patience-testing narrative includes an appearance by Udo Kier (the ubiquitous favorite of cult-movie mavens), and leads to a gross-out finale that just barely qualifies Epidemic as an offbeat horror film (and, for no good reason, the film's title is branded in red in the upper-left corner of the screen throughout all but the first few minutes of the film. Epidemic can't enthusiastically be recommended, but the DVD debut includes an audio commentary track by the director and a documentary about the Dogme movement that is arguably of greater interest than this meandering tale of rampant disease. A strong optional purchase. (J. Shannon)
Epidemic
Home Vision, 106 min., in Danish & English w/English subtitles, not rated, DVD: $29.95 Volume 20, Issue 1
Epidemic
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As of March 2022, Video Librarian has changed from a four-star rating system to a five-star one. This change allows our reviewers to have a wider range of critical viewpoints, as well as to synchronize with Google’s rating structure. This change affects all reviews from March 2022 onwards. All reviews from before this period will still retain their original rating. Future film submissions will be considered our new 1-5 star criteria.
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