Into Something Unexpected
After burning my retinas while trying to distinguish certain shapes through the sepia tint of The Element of Crime, I didn't know much what to expect for Lars Von Trier's second movie.
I mean, I did have an idea of what the second film was going to be but only from a strictly surface point of view. Though let us take a look at what it could have meant seeing it back then when his second film Epidemic came out in 1987.
The Unexpected Follow Up
1987. Cannes Film Festival. As an imaginary film fan that doesn't exist at festivals like this, you try to catch as many screenings as you can. You check out Barbet Schroeder's Barfly and are surprised to see a Cannon films playing as you have heard through the grapevine that its looking like the writing is on the wall for Cannon films production. You check out Wim Wenders Wings of Desire and believe again that films have something worthwhile to tell. Then you notice something playing in the Un Certain Regard section; Lars Von Trier's Epidemic
Okay you think. I like The Element of Crime. Strong debut for a new voice in the cinema that is full of old men that don't know when to give it up. Though this thought will be one of diminishing value as you get older and realize that Martin Scorsese is pulling off feats of magic in his older age but this realization will only come in time when you yourself get old as shit. So you get yourself some popping corn, do they even have this at Cannes?, and sit yourself down and watch the following:
The Film
Lars Von Trier and his writing buddy Niels Vørsel go about in trying to write a new screenplay in the span of one work week. This obviously taking place in another timeline where their script entitled 'The Policeman and The Whore' aka The Element of Crime became corrupted data on a 5 inch floppy drive and they have to start from scratch. The funniest part of the entire film being that Von Trier admitting that he didn't care much for the script but could admit there was a few parts that were good.
The week goes on and as they start brainstorming, they come up with the story of a plague starting to spread with an idealist doctor as the main character wanting to go out into the world and try to cure it. Though as Von Trier states as they create their timeline of the film in progress, this all taking place in a fun scene of a camera pointing at a wall and the two writers are physically painting a line across a wall, that it should be the idealist himself should be the one who is in fact spreading the disease. Soon enough, a sickness starts to spread in the actual world they live in and now blurs the line of reality as to fiction bleeding into the real world.
The Initial Reaction
My imaginary time traveling self would be very confused as to what the fuck I just got finished watching. I travel all the way to the bum end of France to see this? I mean, I always enjoyed these type of meta films that go about in showcasing the process of making a film. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. No examples come to mind at the moment but I'm sure if I place my brain to work that something should come up. Hopefully something before the end of this review but I digress.
To see this would leave me wondering if the boy Von Trier shot his load with the first film. Then I would go about enjoying the other films in the festival with this bad taste in your mouth.
In the Initial Reaction in the Actual Present
Watching this in the now of 2026 with Von Triers entire filmography existing to compare and contrast one film to another, there is something more here but before I get into it, let me just say what I thought of the film; I very much enjoyed it.
The cuts between the two films with the movie they are speculating shot in beautiful 35mm while the reality of the writers trying to write something seems to have been shot in 16mm that was then blown up to 35mm. The amount of grain between the two sequences being the biggest indicator. Or maybe I'm just bullshitting. Not too sure. Anyway, it all looks great.
Also, the fact that Von Trier was either needing or wanting to place himself at the center of it makes far more interesting being that the world knows about those depression episodes that debilitate him but maybe this was before he was suffering from those symptoms that DJ Khaled proclaimed to have.
Seeing what I can only assume is his process by being a guy yammering to his buddy about wanting to make a film, he makes a pretty decent main character to follow. He also becomes the star of the disease bits as the doctor wanting to try and change the world for the better.
Then the ending comes around of the virus starting to spread but it means something more. Its of a wanting desire for the world to suffer through this apocalyptic disease in order to avoid the responsibility of having to actually make a film. A real solid ending and one that I am sure many creative types have had when hitting brick walls in their creative process.
In the Larger Context
Seeing this film being sandwiched in-between his debut The Element of Crime and his third film Europa, I now see the connection. This film at the heart of it all is a cinematic bridge. A true exercise in not only showcasing a filmmaker at work substituting making am actual film but more so of a filmmaker needing to film a movie in order to get the ideas out of his head. A far more valuable source of brainstorming than butting his head against the wall.
Without this film, it is tough to see
if Von Trier would have had the courage to make something like
Europa. As it is in this film where the idea of the idealist
failing to make change comes to be. Though the bigger implications is
that without this film, would
he even dare tread into the ideals of the Dogme 95? Something
that becomes inherent for him to be placed inside of a box so that he
would able to think outside the box. This idea being one that he must have seen in one
of his favorite filmmakers, Andrei Tarkovsky.
The philosopher Slavoj Žižek had mentioned this idea when it came to the work of Andrei Tarkovsky. That the inherent roadblocks of bureaucracy when dealing with the Soviet Union were the kind that forced a filmmaker like him to have to work in creative ways to pull off a film. Being constricted in a box and having to work against it. Then when Tarkovsky left the Soviet Union for Europe, he was unable to create work similar to the kind that he made since the freedom was something he couldn't comprehend.
Important but Minimal
There isn't too much to say about Epidemic. It's a film that will interest fanboys and completionist of Lars Von Trier filmography but even their opinion would be similar to mine. As a whole, if you need to know the thought process of creation to go from one film to another then give this a watch. If not then give it a pass and head straight to Europa.