British distributor Curzon has been releasing some pretty great Blu-ray boxsets of collected films by the same director, so when they announced a Lars Von Trier boxset I was interested. The outer slipcases of these editions look like embossed coarse burlap fabric, which is mighty stylish (especially if you have several different-colored-ones in a row) but... well, by themselves not pretty enough to get an article yet.
Until now. And that has to do with the inner slipcase, for which the company used an absolutely stunning piece of artwork in the style of medieval "crazy" painter Hieronymus Bosch. The set itself doesn't suck either, it's a 14-disc collection which has almost all of Von Trier's theatrical films (Dancer in the Dark is noted by its absence).
So here is a gallery of shots. Click on the edge of the pictures to scroll through them, or at the center of each to see a bigger version.
The outer box. And it's a big box.
Removing the outer slipcase reveals the inner slipcase.
And that slipcase is gorgeous. I took pictures from all sides and photoshopped them together so you can see the artwork. Wowzers!
Inside: the 68-page booklet clamped between two massive disc-holders, each with seven Blu-rays and two posters.
The contents portrayed.
The contents, opened!
I needed to move furniture for this shot. Those disc-holders are like those old roly-kit toolboxes, they keep opening. The posters hidden inside are a nice surprise: you get an exposition poster, the cover artwork, Lars Von Trier's Vow of Abstinence and the Dogme 95 rules.
The films are:
The Element of Crime
Epidemic
Europa
Breaking the Waves
The Idiots
Dogville
The Five Obstructions
Manderlay
The Boss of it All
Antichrist
Melancholia
Nymphomaniac - Director's Cut Volume I
Nymphomaniac - Director's Cut Volume II
The House that Jack Built
The back of the disc-holders shows portraits of main actors in each of the 14 films.
A closer look at the booklet, which contains essays about Von Trier.
The front- and back-end of this excellent set!
AndI hope Curzon doesn't make a Miike Takashi set like this (because you'd need a forklift to handle it).