Lars Von Trier and Niels Vorsel play a par of screenwriters who seclude themselves in their small European apartment to complete a cram session in which the finish a script about an epidemic that hits the area. Eventually the two drive across the border to Germany, where they hang out with Udo Kier and it's during these moments where we begin to see snippets of the film that they are writing. As the film, and the film within a film, progress we realize that what the two Danes have been writing about has actually been happening in the outside world – or so it seems. It could actually all be a figment of Von Trier's bizarre imagination.

Epidemic is weird. And sometimes I think it's just weird for the sake of being weird, not because it necessarily needs to be. I'm all for trying new things and experimental filmmaking – without those the format would stale and sour and dull. But in the case of Epidemic the experiments don't necessarily work. I appreciate what Von Trier and company were attempting with the film and I appreciate that they were abiding by their own unique set of rules as set forth in their manifesto but that doesn't necessarily make a boring film more interesting. The biggest problem with Epidemic is that it really takes awhile to get going. Not much at all really happens in the first forty-five to fifty minutes of the film besides the two writers bouncing ideas back and fourth, smoking, and losing their original script for a completely different film due to a computer problem.

And then there's the red Epidemic 'bug' that sits in the top left corner of the screen for pretty much the entire film. I realize this is supposed to signify some sort of impending doom but does it really need to be there the entire film? No. A few minutes would have gotten the point across quite nicely and without providing a distraction for when things really do start to get moving towards the end of the movie.

That being said, the film isn't terrible. It's just odd and some of the ideas that the writers were running with kind of fall short of the mark. The 'film within a film' segments are great, especially in regards to the cinematography. Watch for a remarkable shot of the main character seemingly gliding along the contaminated lands holding onto a red cross flag, then let the camera reveal to you just how that's happening – it's a truly remarkable shot! The subplot with the doctors going underground and hiding from the general populace so that they can remain unaffected by the outbreak rather than abide by the Hippocratic Oath that they swore to uphold after graduating medical school is an interesting twist. The 16mm 'real world' footage is also interesting in some regards, if a little rough in look and feel. We do get a 'fly on the wall' perspective as the two go about their creative process, smoking and drinking and having a fun time as they do.

Video:

Seeing as the film was shot on both 16mm and 35mm, viewers are bound to notice some differences in quality between the two intertwining stories that the film presents. Obviously the 35mm footage is cleaner and slicker looking while the 16mm footage is grainier and scratchier looking. Both stories are told in stark, high contract black and white (save for the aforementioned EPIDEMIC bug) and Home Vision's transfer renders the imagery very well. There isn't anything to complain about as far as compression artifacts are concerned and there are only faint hints of edge enhancement visible. The only real flaws in this presentation are those that are naturally occurring on the 16mm footage, which is grainier than most DVD viewers will be accustomed to. Other than that, Epidemic looks pretty good.