The 21st-century movie Denis Villeneuve calls “genius”
Since the late 1990s, Denis Villeneuve has established himself as one of cinema’s most significant modern directors. The filmmaker experienced his first brush with success when his debut feature, August 32nd on Earth, was selected as the Canadian entry for Best Foreign Film at the Oscars, although it was not nominated. Still, his second feature, Maelström, won five Genie Awards and a Berlin International Film Festival prize.
By 2009, Villeneuve was on his way to even greater acclaim following the release of his critically praised Polytechnique. The past decade has also been highly fruitful for the director, who has released successful pictures such as Prisoners, Sicario, Arrival, Blade Runner 2049, and most recently, Dune. In an interview with the New York Times, Villeneuve shared: “When I started making movies at the end of the 20th century, the previous generation of filmmakers said cinema was dead. Well… long live cinema!”
As a self-proclaimed cinephile, Villeneuve has declared his love for countless films over the years. However, whereas some directors tend to favour the classics, Villeneuve hasn’t shied away from discussing his favourite movies from the current century. The Dune director gave a generous list of favourites, stuck between Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood and The Coen Brothers’ No Country For Old Men as his pick for the “best”.
However, the film that Villeneuve labels as “genius” is none other than Lars von Trier’s 2004 avant-garde drama Dogville. Starring Nicole Kidman, Lauren Bacall, Chloë Sevigny, Stellan Skarsgård, Harriet Andersson, James Caan and John Hurt, Dogville uses a stage-like setting to tell the story of a woman who attempts to find solace from mobsters in the hostile town of Dogville. Lars von Trier’s film polarised critics, with some hailing it as creative and revolutionary – others finding it emotionally vacant and tedious.
According to Villeneuve: “I vividly remember watching Lars von Trier’s Dogville. The idea of making a set without walls to show the cowardice of a community was genius.” The director also cited films such as Jonathan Glazer’s 2013 erotic sci-fi Under the Skin as one of his favourites of the century, and Jacques Audiard’s 2009 film A Prophet, which he claims contains “one of the most powerful cinematic shots of the last decade.”
He also chose Yorgos Lanthimos’ Dogtooth as a favourite, calling it “the most refreshing thing I’ve seen in a long time”. The director claimed: “I’m still laughing at the crazy adults running to catch aeroplanes falling into their garden because their father convinced them that they were fruit dropping from the sky.” Villeneuve called Lanthimos “one of the most exciting filmmakers working today”.
