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Much like 8mm, my overall response to this movie is "it's a great film, but I would never recommend it to anyone."
Now allow me to explain... Visually this film is one of the best things I've ever watched. It's like a visual symphony, everything conducted carefully to stimulate you in whatever way it's supposed to. The cinematography is perfect, and a lot of the frames would be great to display on your walls.
The acting is completely believable, and Charlotte Gainsbourg deserves every Best Actress award there is for her performance. She fully realizes her character and shows the complete range of emotions over the course of the film. Willem Dafoe fully realizes his character as well, but I guess that's less impressive to me since he's done so many times throughout his career...at this point I simply expect that from him.
As for the story, it's told in a way that's impossible to turn away from. No matter what happens, once it's hooked you in you MUST know everything that follows. Which leads us to the problems I have with the film...
Some parts of this film are boundary-pushing graphic. Now, I'm not a person easily turned away by graphic violence. Go look at some of my favorite films & you'll see lots of graphic violence in them. But this one goes beyond what I'm capable of enduring, and on one hand I feel like it deserves credit in a positive way for making me turn away and squirm uncomfortably...yet those same moments that make me so uncomfortable force me to knock it down a peg or two. I won't say what specifically happens (though if you've seen this it should be obvious what I refer to), but it seemed completely unnecessary...at the very least it could've been implied instead of shown in great detail. And I'm sure some people would say that the fact that von Trier is willing to go there is a great thing, but I disagree.
Also, there was one moment of the film that was so ridiculous it broke the spell, and I'm still unsure why it even happened. It was silly, and not in a comic relief sort of way...more like a "this should be scary/creepy/shocking somehow" way & it failed miserably in my book.
Finally, if I have to consult outside sources to comprehend a movie's ending, then said ending failed to convey its message clearly. Thus, I can go no higher than 7/10.
