Mass walkout at premiere in Cannes of ‘vile’ serial killer film
MORE than 100 cinema-goers stormed out of the premiere of an ultraviolent movie starring Uma Thurman yesterday, branding it ‘vile’.
The House That Jack Built portrays 12 years in the life of a serial killer, played by Matt Dillon, who is shown slicing off a woman’s breast, cutting off a duckling’s legs with scissors and shooting two children in the head at a picnic.
The majority of his scores of victims are women, which also led to accusations at its premiere in the Cannes Film Festival that the movie is misogynistic.
A mass walkout began within minutes of the start of the film, with one woman saying, ‘It’s disgusting’, as she left the black-tie screening. Another audience member said: ‘He mutilates children, and we are all there in formal dress expected to watch it?’ A third added angrily: ‘See- ing children being shot and killed is not art or entertainment.’
The premiere marked a return to Cannes for Danish director Lars Von Trier, who was banned by festival officials in 2011 after he declared himself a Nazi and saying he ‘understood Hitler’.
The festival has battled for years against claims of misogyny, with only 82 female directors ever having their films chosen to compete for the top prize, among the more than 1,000 male directors in the event’s 71-year history.
The Icelandic singer Bjork has claimed Von Trier harassed her on a film set, saying he ‘physically abused’ her.
It wasn’t the first film to shock festivalgoers at Cannes this year, after the grisly Argentinean film Murder Me, Monster horrified many in the audience.