Lars von Trier's Melancholia

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  • #31
    Re: Lars von Trier's Melancholia

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

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    • #32
      Re: Lars von Trier's Melancholia

      Garbage. "Another Earth" is much better.

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      • #33
        Re: Lars von Trier's Melancholia

        Originally posted by CthulhuRises View Post
        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?
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        • #34
          Re: Lars von Trier's Melancholia

          Originally posted by ScriptGal View Post
          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?

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          • #35
            Re: Lars von Trier's Melancholia

            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.

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            • #36
              Re: Lars von Trier's Melancholia

              Originally posted by entlassen View Post
              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.

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              • #37
                Re: Lars von Trier's Melancholia

                Originally posted by Biohazard View Post
                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.)

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                • #38
                  Re: Lars von Trier's Melancholia

                  Originally posted by Biohazard View Post
                  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.

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                  • #39
                    Re: Lars von Trier's Melancholia

                    Originally posted by SuperScribe View Post
                    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.

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                    • #40
                      Re: Lars von Trier's Melancholia

                      No, you shouldn't have been bored. At all.

                      I agree with that.

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                      • #41
                        Re: Lars von Trier's Melancholia

                        Originally posted by entlassen View Post
                        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.
                        My own favorites would include the overture and finale of Die Meistersinger, as well as Walther von Stolzing's master-song; also, the overture to Der fliegende Holländer, and the Prelude to Act III of Lohengrin. I definitely agree with you about the power of the Funeral March.

                        As for films that have used Wagner well, I think Excalibur generally did a good job of integrating various passages in its soundtrack.

                        Originally posted by entlassen View Post
                        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.
                        True, especially if used ironically. But if used with some semblance of seriousness, I don't mind the practice, because at least it exposes the public to music that they would otherwise never encounter, and might even get them interested in it.

                        Besides, given the nature of most current opera productions, Wagner has a better chance of getting a reasonably fair shake from a film director than from today's oh-so-avant-garde, postmodernist opera directors.

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                        • #42
                          Re: Lars von Trier's Melancholia

                          Any director not totally self-hypnotized by his own vacuity could have done something with this. I was prepared to like it - but no - narcissistic and insufferable. And the music (the Tristan Prelude) was wildly inappropriate.

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                          • #43
                            Re: Lars von Trier's Melancholia

                            Originally posted by Bobby Dazzler
                            Lars lost the plot years ago.

                            Dogville was the most excruciating three hours of my life.

                            These days he's just taking the absolute p!$$.

                            AntiChrist just cracked me up.

                            Chaos reigns...
                            Exactly! There were some pretty visuals, though.

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                            • #44
                              Re: Lars von Trier's Melancholia

                              Antichrist was meh, but Melancholia is unforgettable. Really amazing experience. I think it's pointless to discuss it from the screenwriting point of view, as such kinds of movies aren't made in a script, they are born in the director's head.

                              The ending... I can't remember when was the last time I felt like that in a cinema.

                              It's an experience, not a story.

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                              • #45
                                Re: Lars von Trier's Melancholia

                                My favorite of his movies is "Dancer In The Dark" - I think the movie was actually helped by Bjork being in it, because, like her or not, she is a very strong presence in that film, almost a co-creator of it. I loved the music/dance sequences.

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