This blog post examines how far violence can be justified in the name of art through the film ‘The House That Jack Built’.
Lars von Trier’s ‘The House That Jack Built’: Built and Demolished
Since 1896, cinema has undergone continuous development, presenting diverse visions as a visual art form and creating a world that only moving images—beyond text—can construct. Throughout this evolution, discussions about how much reality cinema can depict, or in other words, the limits of film, were undoubtedly part of the conversation. These limits clearly encompass two distinct dimensions: the possibilities and the ethics of the visual art form. Film is not merely a tool for simple entertainment or aesthetic appreciation. It sometimes exposes uncomfortable truths, challenges social taboos, and poses moral questions to us. In this sense, film is a powerful medium, and its ethical responsibility is also significant. Lars von Trier, director of ‘The House That Jack Built’, appears to be an artist who charges forward, stepping over lines drawn by the established film industry in both dimensions. This review will examine the questions raised by ‘The House That Jack Built’ and consider the ethics of filmmaking in light of Lars von Trier’s career.
Plot of ‘The House That Jack Built’
The film unfolds in a frame narrative structure, where the protagonist Jack confesses episodes of his five murders while descending into hell with the grim reaper Verge. Of course, Verge is not a grim reaper, but this term is used for ease of understanding.
Jack is an engineer with severe OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder), whose dream is to personally build a house that embodies his ideals. Simultaneously, he calls himself a ‘cultured killer’ and is also a serial murderer who practices art through murder. Here, Lars von Trier explores the boundary between the violence and artistic impulse residing within the human psyche through Jack. Jack’s actions are depicted not as mere acts of murder, but as part of an artistic creation. This serves as an element posing profound questions about human nature.
Jack’s first episode begins with him murdering a woman who sought help after his car jack malfunctioned. Narrating this episode, Jack rationalizes his killing as “an artistic act manifesting Jack’s inherent will,” stating, “The essence of architecture lies in its materials. The most beautiful structures are those that faithfully follow the inherent will of their building materials. Murder is the same.” — This appears to be both the physical nature of the murder tool Jack and the psychological state of the human Jack.
In the second episode, he evolves to photographing his murders and preserving the film, gradually alleviating his obsessive-compulsive disorder through this act. Escaping the compulsive behavior of repeatedly checking the crime scene for bloodstains, he commits murders freely, transforming into an even more cruel and artistic ‘cultured killer’. He references Blake’s poems The Lamb and The Tyger, stating, “God created both the lamb and the tiger. The tiger, possessing an indispensable savagery, kills the innocent lamb. This is life itself, it is Nature.” Through this dialogue, Lars von Trier explores the complex relationship between good and evil, purity and savagery, emphasizing the duality within human nature. This is the point where Jack’s murders connect to a deeper philosophical discussion, rather than being mere violence. His murderous instinct is God’s will, and the act of killing is an act that grants the dead eternal life within art.
In the third episode, he invokes a ‘hunting ethic’ that dictates one must hunt the youngest fawn first when hunting a deer family, and he kills an entire family while adhering to his own ethics. He then displays the bodies like trophies, taxidermying the youngest child in a perpetually smiling, greeting pose. When Verge criticizes killing a child as “the most sensitive object,” Jack sneers, “I’m also sensitive.” In this scene, Lars von Trier scathingly exposes how meaningless human-defined ethical norms can be. Jack’s ethics are extreme, and the violence he perpetrates strongly evokes moral discomfort in the audience.
In the remaining episodes, Jack praises Nazi technology, idolizing the bombers and mass extermination methods they devised as “Icons,” and conducts experiments where a single bullet passes through multiple heads. However, during this process, he meets Verge, and soon after building the house he had long desired, he descends into hell with Verge. Descending into hell, Jack discovers a path along a cliff that could lead out. Attempting to escape, he soon plummets to the very bottom of hell. The film concludes with ‘Hit the road Jack’.
‘The House That Jack Built’, much like previous Lars von Trier films, experiments with the ethical boundaries upheld by the mainstream film industry. It’s rare for death in a film to feel this repulsive. For instance, in ‘The Avengers,’ we likely feel pleasure rather than disgust when hundreds or thousands of villains die. The reason Jack’s murders evoke revulsion is the explicit imagery and our tendency to judge Jack’s will to rationalize murder as art against real-world morality. At this point, Lars von Trier poses an uncomfortable question to the audience: Why are we tolerant of violence in fiction yet uncomfortable with realistic violence? This leads to a contemplation of the dual nature inherent in the medium of film and functions as a device to test the audience’s moral standards. This point brought to mind Lars von Trier’s first question.
What value does art devoid of morality hold? Can it even be called art in the first place?
This question applies simultaneously to Jack’s art and ‘The House That Jack Built’. At this juncture, Jack becomes a projection of the director’s self, and ‘The House That Jack Built’ transforms into the world’s most elegant commentary and statement of explanation. Jack’s lines become the director’s own words, as Lars von Trier uses Jack’s mouth to speak about his cinematic world and to respond to the public criticism directed at him. He says, “Don’t look at the acts, look at the works,” urging us to find the meaning of the Work obscured by the provocative Acts. He preemptively answers the criticism his previous works faced, and the criticism ‘The House That Jack Built’ will face. This statement demands that audiences separate the violence in the film from its underlying artistic meaning. Yet it is simultaneously a challenge Lars von Trier throws down to his audience, and an excuse emphasizing that his films are not merely intended to shock. He argues that he seeks to capture the darkness within the light through film, to reveal the absurd contradictions of the world. Simultaneously, he argues that imposing arbitrary concepts of good and evil onto an artistically innate disposition is itself violent. Just as humans cull and exhibit animals, he claims he merely captured that physicality artistically according to the laws of the natural world. Therefore, he urges: don’t kill art with moral yardsticks; liberate it.
The artist’s image projected in ‘The House That Jack Built’ feels cowardly, as if he’s justifying himself with a heavy dose of cynicism toward the absurdity he perceives in the world. Yet paradoxically, when glimpsing the pessimistic world through his lens, the transferred compulsion and nausea make one partially, guiltily agree with his self-pity: ‘This is my only healing and liberation.’ The art he presents transcends a mere tool of expression; it is also a mirror reflecting his inner self. Appreciating Lars von Trier’s work is akin to peering into his soul. This is a common thread observed in his earlier films, often referred to as the ‘melancholy trilogy’: Antichrist (2009), Melancholia (2011), and Nymphomaniac (2013). The attempt to pity and liberate oneself through the process of a person born with illness being brutally shattered and the desperate struggle to heal it raises a contradictory question: Lars von Trier’s work appears to be both a magnificent work of art and an intensely personal means for his own healing.
Is it not unjust to use art as a personal means, much like an artist’s self-healing purpose?
This question provokes deep contemplation about what an artist pursues through their creations and how they should be received in the public sphere. When art is used purely as a tool for personal healing, can it retain its value as true art? Just as a flasher exposing himself to satisfy his sexual urges objectifies the viewer as a means to that end, reducing art and its audience to mere therapeutic tools feels illogical, even if the audience willingly participates. The moral challenge Lars von Trier’s work poses to his audience is a crucial element in understanding his art. His work causes discomfort precisely because it goes beyond simple moral lessons to expose the complex nature of the human psyche. Yet, because the reason for this absurdity isn’t clearly articulated, Lars von Trier’s work seemed to reside in the uncanny valley. Ultimately, this question touches upon the broader inquiry: ‘What kind of relationship should art have with the other, or is a relationship with the other indispensable?’
As “Hit the Road Jack” plays, Lars von Trier defends and critiques his own art before plunging himself into the depths of hell. The bitter humor of The House That Jack Built’s ending is likely both his stubbornness and his protest regarding his art. And it leaves us with the ultimate question: how should we receive his work?
