Lars von Trier's Melancholia

[ScriptGal]

Just saw this - newly available streaming on Netflix. I liked Breaking the Waves a lot, but had no interest in seeing Dogville or AntiChrist based on the description and reviews - but maybe now I will, because....

I found this film really haunting and compelling, and I'm still thinking about it. It's an art film, to be sure, and I completely understand why some people HATE it. But it's gorgeous, and it's a really well-observed lyrical psychological study of depression versus "normality" and how perspectives shift when an overwhelming outside force enters the picture (in this case enters the solar system.)

Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg were both amazing and Keifer Sutherland was good too. John Hurt and Charlotte Rampling chew the scenery with relish in their brief scenes.

I wouldn't recommend this to everyone, but all the somewhat depressed and/or neurotic ladies out there - enjoy!

[SuperScribe]

Incredible movie. Simply incredible. (And definitely check out DOGVILLE and ANTICHRIST.)

[CthulhuRises]

Garbage. "Another Earth" is much better.

[ScriptGal]

Originally Posted by CthulhuRises

Garbage. "Another Earth" is much better.

Haven't seen it yet but want to. Brit Marling, right? From the reviews it certainly has more plot. But the same big planet.

Again, can't argue with anyone who didn't like M. It just got me. Watching Kirsten Dunst (as Anthony Lane said) "Blow up her world" at her wedding reception was a cringy delight. She just gives up the facade of "everything is wonderful" and moved from acceptable behavior into fvck the world glory, soon followed (off screen) by mental illness.

Have I convinced everyone yet that this is a good time?

[CthulhuRises]

Originally Posted by ScriptGal

Haven't seen it yet but want to. Brit Marling, right? From the reviews it certainly has more plot. But the same big planet.

Again, can't argue with anyone who didn't like M. It just got me. Watching Kirsten Dunst (as Anthony Lane said) "Blow up her world" at her wedding reception was a cringy delight. She just gives up the facade of "everything is wonderful" and moved from acceptable behavior into fvck the world glory, soon followed (off screen) by mental illness.

Have I convinced everyone yet that this is a good time?

Yep, that's the one (and Brit Marling was fantastic). Both movies are similar in that they have a planetary phenomenon as the backdrop, but it's not the point of the movie (though slightly more relevant in "Another Earth").

The thing is, everything *was* wonderful for Dunst's character. I understand how melancholia works, and it doesn't really matter what your life is like because it's a medical condition...but seeing her mope around for 2 hours just didn't interest me.

*Spoilers*

Also, I found it against his character for Bauer (err...Sutherland) to kill himself in that situation. And what was the deal with the allusion to Dunst being somehow pre-cognizant with the bean jar thing?

[entlassen]

9/10

Only complaint is that (spoiler) Melancholia should have looked bigger in those final few seconds. The two planets collide and Melancholia still looks far off: we should have been able to see its terrain pretty well.

Other than that, brilliant.

Also: best use of Richard Wagner in a film ever...and I usually hate it when films use classical music, because they usually cheapen it.

[Biohazard]

Originally Posted by entlassen

Also: best use of Richard Wagner in a film ever...

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa135NyEemY


My biggest complaint was that essentially nothing was accomplished in the end. The movie could have been 14 minutes long and make the same point.

[SuperScribe]

Originally Posted by Biohazard

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa135NyEemY


My biggest complaint was that essentially nothing was accomplished in the end. The movie could have been 14 minutes long and make the same point.

SPOILERS

I found the way Justine and Claire reversed roles (in a manner of speaking) over the course of the film to be fascinating. Basically, to me this was a character study and a story about impending death -- and how one reacts to the implications of it. All of the stages were present (notice how deftly denial was handled), and eventually crippling fear and acceptance battled it out as death became inevitable: acceptance, in the form of Justine, and crippling fear, in the form of Claire.

And something was absolutely accomplished in the end, albeit on a more thematic level: Death came, no matter what any of the characters were feeling. Death is neutral. It's impartial. It's indifferent. It doesn't give a shit about any of us. That's a startling thing to explore, considering most of us spend our lives avoiding thinking about our own deaths. With that in mind, I don't think a 14-minute version would have had anywhere near the impact (no pun intended) because we needed to see these characters as they were BEFORE they, on a metaphorical level, became terminally ill.

(If memory serves, Lars von Trier has said in interviews that he made this film as an expression of his own fear of death, just like he made the brilliant ANTICHRIST as an expression of his own crippling depression. If nothing else, his films are deeply personal. And I, for one, tend to relate to them.)

[entlassen]

Originally Posted by Biohazard

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa135NyEemY

Good sequence but Ride of the Valkyries is my least favorite of Wagner's stuff. Tristan und Isolde is possibly his best, along with Lohengrin, Prelude to Act 1 and Siegfried's Funeral March.

Ride of the Valkyries in Apocalypse Now is there for bombast; it's a soundtrack to a battle scene. But Tristan und Isolde in Melancholia, with Wanger's signature "unending melody" works so brilliantly as Melancholia gets closer and closer to Earth.

Plus it's just awesome that the world ends to the music of arguably the greatest composer ever.

My biggest complaint was that essentially nothing was accomplished in the end. The movie could have been 14 minutes long and make the same point.

Something was accomplished. Justine made sure her family met the end in a peaceful way. If she hadn't been there, or if she hadn't had melancholia, the family would have been running around screaming and crying.

[Biohazard]

Originally Posted by SuperScribe

And something was absolutely accomplished in the end, albeit on a more thematic level: Death came, no matter what any of the characters were feeling. Death is neutral. It's impartial. It's indifferent. It doesn't give a shit about any of us. That's a startling thing to explore, considering most of us spend our lives avoiding thinking about our own deaths. With that in mind, I don't think a 14-minute version would have had anywhere near the impact (no pun intended) because we needed to see these characters as they were BEFORE they, on a metaphorical level, became terminally ill.

I felt the length of the film was absolutely unnecessary. It was self-indulgent for no reasons that paid off in ways which would differ from a much shorter film.

I don't see anything that was preventing the same story from being told in 90 minutes with the same impact apart from the director's desire for excess. I shouldn't be bored when Earth is about to be obliterated. Not for any reason whatsoever.