Line #47 Film/TheElementOfCrime


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3	[[quoteright:800:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lvteocc2b2702.png]]
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5	''The Element of Crime'' is Creator/LarsVonTrier's 1984 debut film, a GenreBusting movie, a ScienceFiction film as well as a PsychologicalThriller with plot and characters typical of FilmNoir, but the general atmosphere of a CyberpunkWithAChanceOfRain story, located in [[AfterTheEnd immediately post-World War III]] [[CrapsackWorld Europe]], with [[MindScrew surrealist undertones]], and the whole thing filmed in a fashion homaging [[GermanExpressionism expressionist movies]]. The result is one of the gloomiest movies ever directed which makes even ''Film/BladeRunner'' look bright and optimistic.
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7	It tells the story of detective [[MeaningfulName Fisher]], expatriate in Cairo, who undergoes [[AllPsychologyIsFreudian therapeutic hypnosis]] in order to recall the events of his last case, which left him quite traumatised. The rest of the movie thus [[WholeEpisodeFlashback consists entirely of a flashback of said events]]: the search for an [[HiddenVillain elusive]] [[SerialKiller child killer]], using a controversial [[TheProfiler profiling method]] created by his [[ShellShockedVeteran former mentor]] and described in a book, the titular [[TitleDrop Element of Crime]].
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9	First film of the Europa trilogy.
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12	!!Tropes:
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14	%%* AloneWithThePsycho: {{Subverted\|Trope}} and possibly {{deconstructed\|Trope}}, see NiceJobBreakingItHero, below.
15	%%* AntiHero: Fisher starts as one, but by the end of the film, he became a [[spoiler: FallenHero]].
16	* BadCopIncompetentCop: The police forces are so violent, expeditive, corrupted or unconcerned that they really act the part of TheMafia.
17	%%* BlackAndGrayMorality
18	* ChekhovsGun: One of the sculpted statuettes left by the killer [[spoiler: triggers the NiceJobBreakingItHero moment, much later into the movie]].
19	%%* {{Chiaroscuro}}
20	%%* CityNoir
21	* CrapsackWorld: Post-WorldWarIII Europe is nothing but [[AfterTheEnd a crumbling pile of ruins]] where everybody has gone [[WretchedHive dirt poor, deeply corrupt, completely mad, or a combination of those]].
22	* CyberPunk-DieselPunk-PunkPunk: Difficult to place exactly, but definitively ''Something'' Punk; the atmosphere certainly gives a CyberpunkWithAChanceOfRain ''Film/BladeRunner''-esque feeling, but the time period is post WorldWarIII, in an unnamed European country in ruins, though [[SchizoTech weird contraptions and anachronistic apparatuses]] do show up here and there.
23	%%* CyberpunkWithAChanceOfRain: This movie ''outdarks'' and ''outrains'' ''Film/BladeRunner''.
24	%%* DarkenedBuildingShootout: {{Invoked\|Trope}} but {{averted\|Trope}}.
25	%%* DeliberatelyMonochrome: See RealIsBrown bellow.
26	%%* DutchAngle: Purposely abused to absurd lengths to cause the viewer to lose sense of directions and gravity.
27	%%* FailureIsTheOnlyOption
28	%%* FemmeFatale: Kim is a [[DeconstructedTrope deconstruction]].
29	%%* FilmNoir: Simultaneously a {{Homage}} and a {{Deconstruction}}.
30	%%* GainaxEnding
31	* GenreDeconstruction: Only Lars von Trier could deconstruct a genre as cynical and dark as FilmNoir, and still have the result be a {{Homage}} rather than a {{Parody}}.
32	%%* GermanExpressionism: A {{Homage}} to the genre.
33	* HeWhoFightsMonsters: A rather unfortunate consequence of a profiling method where one needs to think like the criminal; [[spoiler: Fisher ends up killing a child, and it is strongly implied that Osborne killed one too]].
34	%%* HiddenVillain
35	%%* HumansAreBastards
36	* MadDoctor: The surgeon who examines the corpse of a murdered girl is openly delighted by horrible mutiliation of the corpse by the killer. {{Lampshaded\|Trope}} by Fisher, who jokingly asks him if he was trained in [[GodwinsLaw Auschwitz]]
37	* MindScrew: A case of ZigZaggingTrope; individual sequences and dialogues are sometimes difficult to make sense of, but put together they form a rather consistent and straightforward story (the audience is even given enough clues to predict some of the twists)… until you get hit by the [[GainaxEnding ending]].
38	* NiceJobBreakingItHero: At what seems to be climax of the movie and the setup for a DarkenedBuildingShootout, Fisher is acting as the bodyguard of a young girl who is supposed to be meeting with someone suspected to be the killer. Footsteps are heard outside the room. [[spoiler: Then one of the killer's statuettes falls from Fisher's pocket. The girl, believing him to be the killer, tries to flee, and in the ensuing panic and attempt to subdue her, he strangles her to death]].
39	* NothingIsScarier: We are never told what actually happened to Europe that turned it into such a hellhole.
40	* PrivateEyeMonologue: {{Subverted\|Trope}}, as the monologue is actually a dialogue between Fisher and his therapist, since the whole movie is a hypnosis-induced flashback.
41	%%* PsychologicalThriller
42	* RealIsBrown: Possibly {{justified\|Trope}} as the whole movie is a [[FlashbackEffects hypnotic flashback]]; interesting in that it was ''not'' done with CameraTricks, but by lighting the sets almost only with [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodium-vapor_lamp low pressure sodium vapor lamps]].
43	* RiddleForTheAges: [[spoiler: The identity of the original killer is not revealed]].
44	%%* SceneryGorn
45	%%* SerialKiller: Most of the associated tropes are however {{averted\|Trope}}, {{subverted\|Trope}} or {{deconstructed\|Trope}}.
46	%%* ShellShockedVeteran: Osborne, Fisher's former mentor.
47	* ShoutOut: Various shots paying homage to movies by Andrei Tarkovsky.
48	* SilenceIsGolden: In the manner of early sound [[GermanExpressionism expressionist]] films, the soundtrack alternates between this and discreet PsychoStrings.
49	* SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism: Way, way, way on the cynical end.
50	%%* SuperWindowJump: Used twice, but {{subverted\|Trope}}, as the effect produced is more akin to DramaticShattering and SlowMotionFall.
51	%%* ThroughTheEyesOfMadness
52	%%* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotSymbolic: {{Invoked\|Trope}} and probably {{deconstructed\|Trope}}.
53	%%* WretchedHive

Context Film / TheElementOfCrime