Tranceformer

Life is a circus, damm it.
Director, screenwriter, cinematographer and actor Lars von Trier grew up in a radical middle class family that advocated methods of liberated upbringing. This liberal environment made him, according to himself, into his own authority. His school was a stern one, he had difficulties in sitting still, and already at the age of ten he quit. Instead he occupied himself in making astoundingly artistic short films with his mother's Super 8 camera. Early experiments shows an incredible ingenuity; little Trier made advanced dolly shots riding a bike and created original effects by using overexposure. His highest wish at the time was to be able to construct his own camera crane.
During the years at the film academy Trier became von Trier. He did not agree on much of the theories on film making being taught by the lecturers, and often did the exact opposite of what they said was the right way. He did, however, meet some of the people he was to work closely with in the future.
The trilogy about a weathering Europe - ”The Element of Crime, Epidemic”, and ”Europa” (US title ”Zentropa”, just like his production company”), Breaking the Waves”, the TV series ”The Kingdom ”and right now ”The Kingdom 2” has established von Trier among the worlds most interesting filmmakers of today. In Tranceformer we get to meet some of the persons who surrounds him and his work old friends, co-workers, actors. The picture they give on von Trier is contradictory, on one side boyish, ironic, loyal and poetical, on another side afraid og people, controlled beyond reason, and full of selfhatred. Actor Ernst-Hugo Järegård says at a point in the documentary that von Trier has made up his mind that existence is hell. ''My whole life is a bluff'', he says himself. Destructivity is very important to him, but also the rebuilding of the ego. He speaks of idealism here, the worst crime of them all being that of giving up ones own ideals.
The Björkman team has followed the otherwise press- and media-avoiding Lars von Trier for more than two years. ”Tranceformer” gives a unique insight in his artistic as well as his imaginative world. With humour and distance he tell of his work and interests, of fobias and other scares, and of a couple of funny and/or frightening episodes from his childhood and time at the film academy. We are also treated with clips from his earliest material.
Angelica Tibblin Chen

Premiärstatus
Nordisk premiär: Medverkande
Lars von Trier: Producent
Lars Jönsson: Manus
Lars von Trier, Niels Vørsel: Foto
Jan Röed, Anthony Dod Mantle, Björn Blixt: Musik
Joachim Holbek: Talat språk
English, Danish, Swedish