Lars von Trier's Women

Lars von Trier’s Women has the considerable merit of offering a comprehensive look at the director’s work, embracing his cinematic opus in its entirety, including his earliest films, and granting his more recent ones, namely Melancholia, Antichrist and the Nymphomaniac dilogy, scrupulous attention. * Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media *
Lars von Trier's Women is much more than a collection of essays – it is a very powerful critical project going right to the heart of the oeuvre of one of the greatest and most intriguing contemporary directors. This heart concerns not simply “von Trier’s women”, but with them and beyond them the question and the dimension of a genuine act at work in von Trier’s art. The singularity of von Trier’s opus works as an extremely productive trigger of the essays written by some of the most significant authors in contemporary theory. Lars von Trier's Women is a magnificent cocktail of cinema, philosophy, psychoanalysis and film theory. * Alenka Zupancic, Professor at the Research Center of the Slovene Academy of Science, Ljubljana, Slovenia *
There’s a good deal more than what meets the eye with Lars von Trier. His detractors can hardly get beyond his deliberate provocations. But if one can do so — and this collection certainly does — one discovers that von Trier offers us a remarkable oeuvre to explore some of the most daunting issues that confront us today. This current collection focuses on the representation of women in his cinema. Yes, von Trier brings us to the brink of what is deemed tasteful, appropriate, and even ethical in his representations. But as the various contributors show, far from blindly recycling misogynist views of women, the Danish filmmaker compels us to ask some deeply troubling questions about our own psychic failings, investments, projections and biases. Far from indulging gendered identifications or the pleasure economy, von Trier’s characterization of women induces an unrelenting unease in his viewers. Rather than rushing to condemn or judge him, the essays in this volume invite readers to dwell in and reflect on that disquietude. * John Caruana, Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy, Ryerson University, Canada *