- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
A winning comedy about an unknown filmmaker we all know, May 17, 2008
By Peter Schepelern
“Erik Nietzsche, who is credited with the screenplay, will not be familiar to most. Then again, he does bear a striking resemblance – even down to a characteristic knit cap – to the central figure in recent Danish cinema, Lars von Trier, who, it just so happens, attended the National Film School from 1979-1982.
The film contains authentic clips from amateur productions and easily recognisable paraphrases of von Trier's film-school productions – a Boccaccio parody, "The Story of Two Husbands with Far Too Young Wives": a gangster picture, "The Last Detail"; and his graduation film, "Pictures of Liberation". Von Trier aficionados are likely to spot other more or less conspicuous references to his films "Nocturne", "The Element of Crime", "Epidemic", "The Idiots" and "Dogville". Approaching "Erik Nietzsche The Early Years" directly, as a film à clef, trying to match the film's characters with real people from Trier's film-school years, you will likely come to the conclusion that any resemblance is either accidental – or researched.
Another hint to the true identity of Erik Nietzsche is the detached voice-over sarcastically commenting on events. The voice is unmistakably von Trier's.
There may be no getting around it that this is von Trier's story, but it is still Thuesen's film. The director has subjected Trier's material to a free interpretation. His job in Erik Nietzsche was to tear the story out of the von Trier-esque universe, steering the story away from personal vendetta and shaping it into a story capable of standing on its own two feet.
Probably, that's also why von Trier chose not to direct the film himself. While the original screenplay had moments of the artist indulging in the martyrdom of rejection, the final film seeks to distance itself from the cult of the exceptional individual and expand the scope into a mainstream comedy about a young artist’s misadventures in his formative years.
Thuesen, himself a National Film School alum, graduated in 1991 with a degree in editing. Over the years, he has worked with von Trier, Jørgen Leth, Tómas Gislason and others. The director's touch, distinguished by virtuosity of form and stylistic brilliance, turns the material into a jaunty comedy about a happy-go-lucky young man leaving his yellow-brick childhood home and venturing into the world of art where fierce dragons and fair maidens await. The emphasis is on satire, culminating in the scene that has Erik assisting on his friend Zelko's student film. The school's president and professors are showing unusual interest in the shoot at a ritzy mansion, perhaps because the film’s madcap action revolves around a voluptuous nude woman being chased around a swimming pool by a belligerent mummy.
Erik Nietzsche, a briskly paced, episodic period picture, shows an innocent wannabe artist maturing and hardening as he encounters life's harsh realities and an artists' scene rife with vanity and conceit. The film can be seen as what Brecht called a Lehrstück, a learning piece clarifying the rules of life in the best instructional manner.
Erik Nietzsche, played in a convincing blend of naivety and wiles by the comedian Jonatan Spang, at first is an "essentially honest and friendly person" – as the voice-over repeatedly points out. Losing both his innocence and his illusions, he eventually learns that a measure of cynicism is necessary to survive in the film world.
Alliances, intrigues and treachery sadly are a required element of career maintenance. Nietzsche's film-school years not only forge him into a persecuted victim and a disillusioned idealist, in the process he also becomes a cynical and manipulative little genius primed for success.
”
