LARS VON Trier, the endlessly provocative Danish film-maker, has stirred up controversy at the Cannes Film Festival by announcing that he is “a Nazi”.
The director made his comments at a press conference to promote his relatively unthreatening new film Melancholia, which played in competition last night.
The answer came when he was asked about his German roots. While Kirsten Dunst, star of Melancholia, squirmed in an adjacent seat, Von Trier rambled erratically.
“I thought I was a Jew for a long time and was very happy being a Jew,” he said. “Then it turned out that I was not a Jew . . . I found out that I was really a Nazi, which also gave me some pleasure.”
It got worse. Warming to his theme, Von Trier continued: “What can I say? I understand Hitler. He did some wrong things, absolutely, but I can see him sitting there in his bunker at the end . . . Yes, I sympathise with him a little bit.”
Von Trier has long been known as a prankster. Co-founder of the Dogme 95 cinematic movement, which imposed a series of often-ludicrous rules on its adherents, he last appeared in the Cannes competition with the hugely controversial Antichrist. That film famously featured graphic depictions of sexual intercourse and included a scene in which Charlotte Gainsbourg, who also appears in Melancholia, faked genital mutilation with a grimy pair of shears.
Yet, at the press conference, it looked as if even this experienced headline-chaser realised he might have gone too far.
“But come on, I am not for the second World War, and I am not against Jews,” he said.
“I am very much for Jews – well not too much because Israel is a pain in the ass. But still, how can I get out of this sentence? Okay, I’m a Nazi.”
The comments could fatally damage any hopes Von Trier harboured of winning the Palme d'Or, Cannes's top prize. Melancholia, a family drama that takes in the destruction of the Earth by a wandering planet, has received both raves and raspberries from the critics. The director won the prize in 2000 for Dancer in Dark. Robert De Niro, president of the jury, may not be too enthusiastic about handing a second Palme, one of cinema's great honours, to a self-declared Nazi.