The House That Jack Built

Two voices from the dark, two men in conversation on the way to the other side: That is the basic premise for Lars von Trier’s THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT. Jack is a serial killer, a psychopath and a narcissist with a knack for aesthetic theory. He tells about his work in a series of flashbacks, each concerning “incidents” from his bizarre spell of killings. The man on the listening end in this morality play is called Verge, as in “on the verge”, supposedly, even if there are hints on the Roman poet Vergil – who was of course the guide in Dante’s “The Divine Comedy”. This visionary text is the main inspiration for THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT: the deeds of Jack may be extremely hard to stomach, but there is something like accountability, even if it is aesthetical in its own way. Tellingly not only the atrocities of Jack are flashbacks, there are also glimpses of prior works by Lars von Trier, which makes THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT a summary of his own creations. And somehow the most repulsive of his movies becomes also his most consoling. The hell of psychopathology is not the last word. The last word is an image resonant of concepts (and images) of humanity: knowing the difference between good and evil. (Bert Rebhandl)