'The house that Jack built': dead letter

In an indifferent world, a serial killer can do whatever he wants. Jack justifies his crimes with big words. The slaughter of children and mutilation of women alternates with digressions about Hitler, Glenn Gould, art, and grapes.

An impressive descent into hell is supposed to compensate for the long-winded passages. The contrast between this and Von Trier’s earlier work is that almost all of the humanity has been annihilated. A lot of this film about the art of killing and the death of art is just a dead letter.