Tribute or Parody?

If you told me that Lars Von Trier kept actors in sensory deprivation for sixteen days prior to shooting a TV commercial, I'd probably believe you (if you're trying to produce unusual emotions, it's not a bad idea). But the part of this video that really won me over is this: "the ads took over one year to complete due to Von Trier's decision to wire his own jaw shut and communicate with the cast and crew in a form of sign language he created himself." On first viewing, I appreciated this as a tribute to Von Trier, but now I'm starting to fear that it's a straight-up parody. If the latter is true, I'm not convinced that The Onion "gets" Von Trier's peculiar sense of humor. The high concept gestures they appear to be mocking (ie. Dogme, The Idiots, The Five Obstructions) had tongue-in-cheek comic intentions all along.

Von Trier's decision to actually implement these ideas in reality, rather than simply joke about them, is where his real comic inspiration lies. In that sense, Von Trier may be an even funnier (and more committed) comedy writer than those who ridicule him at The Onion. He doesn't just write his crazy ideas down, he acts upon them and sees where they take him. If you admire Von Trier's comically restrictive approach to filmmaking, this video fails as parody... but inadvertently succeeds as tribute. Either way, it's a pretty amusing two and a half minutes. -- JD