Tranceformer - A Portrait of Lars von Trier Page #3

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collaborators I had in film school,

that is,

Tmas Gislason and Tom Elling,

I was at the school with them and

they are cameraman and editor

they are the collaborators that

have meant most to me.

There's no doubt.

Lars had made his own films

before film school.

So he was fascinated

with technology and the like.

I had a very naive attitude to...

I was so young,

I didn't understand a damn.

I came from the art world

and had references from

representational art.

Lars had...he knew all the film

classics, knew them by heart.

And Tmas,

he was the young one

with a really sharp

sense of humor.

He was totally in harmony

with his time.

We were three separate elements

who were bound to be combined.

I think that Tom is one of those

that has given a lot to Lars.

Tom Elling.

The whole look of

The Element of Crime,

the way it was.

There's a lot of Tom in that.

I think it's...the portrayal of

images in the subconscious

that we've, in one way or another,

come close to.

I don't think it's something

we were particularly aware of.

But it's clear

that evil is interesting.

And as Dante said when he wrote

The Divine Comedy,

it was enjoyable writing

Purgatory.

But when he came to Paradise

it was pure agony.

He had no idea what to write.

But Purgatory was fun.

It's like that.

It's fascinating. How can you...

How can...

How could they imagine

exterminating the Jews as they did?

How could it be accepted

by a people

who basically knew about it?

How could it happen?

What sort of mechanisms

can get a people

to behave as they did?

It's all so fascinating.

It's the closest we have had

or the closest we have to true,

you could say evil, isn't it?

Genuine evil...

Answer my question.

Do you know this man?

Max Hartmann is my friend.

He fed me and gave me

a shelter.

Lars von Trier often appears

in his own films.

Here in Europa he's the Jew who,

through his statement,

frees a business magnate

and nazi collaborator

from all suspicion of dealing

with the Nazis.

The difference between what

you should be and what you are

is something that means

quite a lot to me.

That's why idealism, or idealists,

interests me as much as they do.

Epidemic is Lars von Trier's

second feature.

Von Trier and his co-writer

Niels Varsel work on a script

about a doctor in a world

ravaged by a deadly epidemic -

The plague.

But it's the idealist

who spreads the disease

on his curative odyssey.

The altruistic doctor

is portrayed by Lars von Trier.

My mother...her...

She's basically made

one foreign trip in her life.

That was to Yugoslavia.

During my childhood

we heard of its splendor.

Motley pigs ran around

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