Forbrydelsens Element (1984)
Genre: Drama / Thriller
Duration: 104 minuten
Alternative titles: The Element of Crime / Element of Crime
Country:
Denmark
Directed by: Lars von Trier
Stars: Michael Elphick, Esmond Knight and Me Me Lai
IMDb score:
6,7 (12.164)
Releasedate: 18 May 1984
This movie is not available on US streaming services.
Forbrydelsens Element plot
After a long stay in Cairo, a detective meets his former employer, with whom he wrote the book 'The element of crime'; a book that covers a methodology based on identifying with a criminal. In a murder case in which he is involved, he applies this methodology.
Actors and actresses
Fisher
Osborne
Kim
Kramer
Therapist
Coroner
Coroner's Assistant
Portier 1
Portier 2
Schmuck of Ages
Reviews & comments
Fisico
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- 10039 messages
- 5398 votes
One of the first of von Trier when he was not yet so controversial. But he already set the tone to produce less accessible and strange films. With the plot itself I could not do much, but was strongly intrigued by the atmosphere.
The film has a gray dark depressing context of rain and mud. The yellow-brown red constant glow has something ominous. Fine cinematography and clever approach about a kind of criminological study of the profile of a serial killer. Like a kind of Lombroso one goes in search of the perpetrator who according to standard analyses should lead to the right track.
Not entirely convinced by the film, but all the more by von Trier himself.
Translated from Dutch · View original
Woland
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- 4809 messages
- 3825 votes
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.
Strange film, that much is clear. The story is probably the most standard aspect of the film, in which a police inspector increasingly immerses himself in and lives as the murderer he is looking for, and in that way also becomes more and more like him. But that is not exactly told in a conventional way. The film is bathed in red and sepia, with every now and then objects in blue for contrast, and the The film is quite dark anyway. In Von Trier's Germany it is always dark, wet and bleak (I sometimes had to think of Bela Tarr's Hungary where it also always seems to be shit weather), and the images are not always that good logical. I also regularly wondered what was going on during all kinds of scenes, but visually it was certainly beautiful in general. I also did not understand a lot, but I am intrigued. And now I am also very curious to Von Trier's other earlier films.
Translated from Dutch · View original
Robi
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- 2536 messages
- 2530 votes
A detective must solve a murder using a method in which he identifies with the murderer. The film gives a very experimental impression and also the impression that the budget was very small. As a result, there was a lot of artificiality with the use of color and decors. As a result, the film was not very accessible and it all seemed rather vague. The story itself also seemed rather unnecessarily complicated. A film noir with a modern art approach, that is how I would briefly describe the film. But still not very successful. Clearly a beginning film by Lars von Trier, but already quite an idiosyncratic one. And the first of a trilogy that we watched in succession.
Translated from Dutch · View original
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