When people name filmmakers, they think of some of greats. Whether it's people like Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, Mike Nichols, Francis Ford Coppola, or new auteurs like Paul Thomas Anderson, Steven Soderbergh, Sofia Coppola, and many more to name. Then there are the real auteur filmmakers that push the boundaries for cinematic achievement and total control into the making of film.

First there was Orson Welles who made possibly one of the greatest films of all-time with his own vision, Citizen Kane back in 1941. The second was Stanley Kubrick whose wide array of movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, Full Metal Jacket, Paths of Glory, and many more were acclaimed cinematic achievements. As great as those two were, both filmmakers gained notoriety for their drive as artists by striving for perfection and making vast achievements in cinema. Today, there's no real filmmaker like Welles and Kubrick who can possess that drive and passion into making film except one person. Danish-born filmmaker Lars von Trier.

Like Welles and Kubrick, von Trier is a filmmaker passionate about cinema and artistry into his films. Unlike the two American filmmakers, von Trier's ambitions and phobias are filled with notoriety as he strives to break ground in cinema while rebelling against the world of modern cinema. His first feature-length film, 1984's The Element of Crime and 1987's Epidemic were filled with abstract moments that bended all sorts of genres while going back to old-school hand-held camera filmmaking. In 1991, he released Europa (Zentropa is its American title) to complete the trilogy of the disintegration of Europe. Despite all the acclaim for his early films, von Trier didn't get respect from the elite in world cinema where at the Cannes film festival that year, he won a special prize but not the coveted Golden Palm award. In response, he gave the jury the finger and called the jury's head and legendary filmmaker Roman Polanski "a midget".

If von Trier's ambitions annoy many, his passion for storytelling helped gained him a loyal following, notably a movie called Dimension that von Trier is planning to release that will contain three-minute increments of 30 years in his own life. So far, the years since that project was founded in the early 90s is in his vaults, as he would work on The Kingdomfor Danish television to great reviews. Then in 1995 at a Paris film festival, von Trier announced the Dogme 95 movement that he co-founded with Danish filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg.

In response to the current state of filmmaking, Dogme 95 was set to emphasize on storytelling rather than technical achievements that has so far gained a wide cult following with noted films like Julien-Donkey Boy, Italian for Beginners, The King is Alive, The Celebration, and von Trier's only contribution to the movement, The Idiots.

In 1996, von Trier made what some said was his greatest effort to date, Breaking the Waves. Around that same year, Swedish film critic Stig Bjorkman decided to film a profile on von Trier with filmmaker Fredrick von Krusenstjerna for a documentary film entitled Tranceformer. Tranceformer is a one-hour documentary examining von Trier's passion for filmmaking and his movies like his European trilogy and The Kingdom as well as Breaking the Waves starring Emily Watson. The film also explores von Trier's anxieties and amounts of phobia while he uses it to push his own artistry. With interviews from von Trier along with actors, filmmakers, and peers, Tranceformer is a well in-depth look into one of today's most gifted and difficult filmmakers of our time.

The film begins with von Trier talking about his passion for filmmaking while his peers label him as difficult and ambitious. Sometimes, they call him enfant terrible since he added "von" to his name since he was born Lars Trier in 1957 in Copenhagen. When he was a child, von Trier did some acting for some Scandinavian television when he was only 12 while he enjoyed a happy childhood at home while he would have his mother's Super 8mm camera to make little movies that involved death or childhood. While he enjoyed a happy, free home with his freethinking parents (except his biological father who he would meet after his mother's 1995 death, who he no longer wants to contact with), his school life he admits was hell. He always gets bullied by school kids and hated the uptight, strict upbringing that school had offered.

His strict, controlled school years would lead von Trier to make little films as he constantly experimented with his abilities as an artist. He met with a young editor Tomas Gialson and cinematographer Tom Elling who loved his ambitions and their passion for filmmaking as they studied in a workshop. In 1984, von Trier made his first feature, The Element of Crime that was a surreal look into Europe as its influence disintegrates. Film producer Peter Aalbaek Jensen noted von Trier's ambitions to stretch the imagination as he looked at reality in a strange way. For 1987's Epidemic, von Trier would appear in the film as a filmmaker trying to make a film as he was pushing boundaries between genres of any kind. For 1991's Europa, he experimented more with black-and-white footage and colors for a splicing of World War II imagery and modern-day European cinema with a grainy outlook into things.

For some of his peers, his ability to distort imagery and subplots that included a scene in Europa where a little boy watching a film was holding a gun, shooting at the characters in that film as they get shot and killed with blood spurting on that film. As brilliant as von Trier is, he also has an immense amount of anxieties due to several phobias. He doesn't like to travel. He doesn'tlike to go on boat rides (though he's trying to overcome it with kayaking); he fears airplanes and has all of these anxieties that gives him a hard time to lead a normal life. Sometimes, the anxieties would be frustrating; he would lead to self-loathing, which he often faces in his life. Particularly since he isn't very sociable either. He feels the only way he can control those anxieties is through his work.

For 1994's The Kingdom that he co-directed, he took all of the elements of his previous films for a surreal, abstract film about a hospital gone wrong with all of these orange-like images and tone where something could go wrong when you least expect it. While Tranceformer talks mostly about his film life, very little is talked about his family life except when actor talks about the Cannes film festival in 1996 where his first wife was trying to get dressed up and von Trier wanted to wear this old tuxedo from 1928 that used to belong to Carl Theoden Dryer. Then the film goes into the subject into the making of Breaking the Waves starring Emily Watson (in her debut performance) and Stellan Skarsgard. Skarsgard talks about the emotional heaviness the film has and von Trier's ability to make it real while Katrin Cartridge is moved by his speeches on how machinery should be light as a feather.

While it's a shorter than most documentaries, Tranceformer is a very interesting film about one of the most ambitious filmmakers of the past twenty years. While he still hasn't overcome some phobias, von Trier is a very complex man who believes in his own artistry, even if it comes off as arrogant and self-indulgent. Stig Bjorkman definitely plays up to the warped mind of von Trier without making him into someone really important. Instead, Bjorkman allows filmgoers to go into von Trier's anxieties and passion for filmmaking while showing some bits of comedy. Especially in the making of Breaking the Waves where Emily Watson and Stellan Skarsgard try to boost up some humor in the melodrama-heavy tone of that movie.

While fans of von Trier will enjoy this film, the only real disappointment matter aside from its short length is the fact that there's a need for more information on the man. Notably the Dogme 95 movement that he co-founded back in 1995 that can be seen in a 2002 documentary by Jesper Jargil called The Purified. Overall, Tranceformer is really a film for anyone interested in Lars von Trier and his phobias and eccentricities. Since the release of this film, von Trier released The Kingdom II in 1997 and planned to make a third one that's now in limbo due to the death of actor Ernst-Hugo Jaregard, who noted von Trier's ability to work with actors and try to get them to be as realistic in films rather than some Hollywood archetype.

After releasing the second Dogme 95 film The Idiot to some acclaim in 1998, he completed another trilogy that started with Breaking the Waves and The Idiot for Dancer in the Dark in 2000 that finally won him the Golden Palm award at the Cannes Film Festival despite some detractors. In 2003, von Trier gained more controversy for his depiction of American society with his new film Dogville starring Nicole Kidman that is sure to have some love/hate comments from filmgoers. In the end, Tranceformer is really a documentary film for anyone interested in Lars von Trier.

Lars von Trier Reviews: Europa Trilogy: The Element of Crime - Epidemic - Europa

The Kingdom: (The Kingdom I) - (The Kingdom II)

Golden Hearts Trilogy: Breaking the Waves - Idioterne/Dogme #2 - Dancer in the Dark

USA-Land of Opportunities Trilogy: Dogville - Manderlay - (Wasington)

Non-Trilogy Films: (Medea) - The Five Obstructions - The Boss of It All - Antichrist

Miscellaneous: The Purified

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for Groups
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age