Melancholia (15.)
Directed by Lars Von Trier.
Starring Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Kiefer Sutherland, John Hurt, Charlotte Rampling and Stellan Skarsgard. 130 mins
Lars is feeling blue and when he is feeling blue he wraps it up into one giant planet size bundle and has it smash into the Earth and kill us all. The latest Von Trier film is companion piece to/ mirror image of/ apology for, his previous provocation Antichrist. It’s another film about his depression but unlike Antichrist, which was fired by dismembering rage, this is full of glum acceptance.
The film opens with a prelude, presenting key scenes and ideas from what follows in a heightened, glossy manner. These opening images are beautiful but also gaudy and naff, like Tarkovsky recreating kitsch 70s poster art such as Wings of Love, the one with the naked couple on the swan’s wings. Like the title cards in Von Trier’s earlier Breaking the Waves they seem garish at the time but when they are gone you yearn to see them again.
The whole film takes place in one location, a luxurious golf resort, owned by Justine’s brother in law (Sutherland.) The first half is taken up with a lengthy wedding sequence where the happy bride Justine (Dunst, exceptional) is gradually overwhelmed by depression. The second when the human race is in the thrall of a giant blue planet that is heading in the general direction of the earth.
The whole thing is very moving but it is always perilous to take a prankster at face value. Despite seeming heartfelt, there is still the Watch Out Von Trier’s About factor to it. There are plenty of nods to the audience that although the film is fundamentally miserable, it’s not entirely serious.
The film’s score is limited to the repetition of the same extract of Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde which swells up heart-rendingly whenever there is scene without dialogue. Then there is the cheerful mix and match casting decisions: Dunst and Gainsbourg as sisters; Hurt and Rampling as Dunst and Gainsbourg’s parents; Sutherland as Gainsbourg’s husband. (And then just to confuse it real life father and son Stellan and Alexander Skarsgard playing father and son.) And having Jack Bauer in a European art film works beautifully.
Melancholia lost out to Tree of Life at Cannes and there is an odd symmetry between this paean to our demise and Malick’s ode to creation. I suspect many will describe this as empty and pretentious but for me it carries real substance. Funny and despairing, stark and opulent, heartfelt and evasive, haunting and beautiful, it is one of Von Trier’s finest creations.
Directed by Lars Von Trier.
Starring Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Kiefer Sutherland, John Hurt, Charlotte Rampling and Stellan Skarsgard. 130 mins
Lars is feeling blue and when he is feeling blue he wraps it up into one giant planet size bundle and has it smash into the Earth and kill us all. The latest Von Trier film is companion piece to/ mirror image of/ apology for, his previous provocation Antichrist. It’s another film about his depression but unlike Antichrist, which was fired by dismembering rage, this is full of glum acceptance.
The film opens with a prelude, presenting key scenes and ideas from what follows in a heightened, glossy manner. These opening images are beautiful but also gaudy and naff, like Tarkovsky recreating kitsch 70s poster art such as Wings of Love, the one with the naked couple on the swan’s wings. Like the title cards in Von Trier’s earlier Breaking the Waves they seem garish at the time but when they are gone you yearn to see them again.
The whole film takes place in one location, a luxurious golf resort, owned by Justine’s brother in law (Sutherland.) The first half is taken up with a lengthy wedding sequence where the happy bride Justine (Dunst, exceptional) is gradually overwhelmed by depression. The second when the human race is in the thrall of a giant blue planet that is heading in the general direction of the earth.
The whole thing is very moving but it is always perilous to take a prankster at face value. Despite seeming heartfelt, there is still the Watch Out Von Trier’s About factor to it. There are plenty of nods to the audience that although the film is fundamentally miserable, it’s not entirely serious.
The film’s score is limited to the repetition of the same extract of Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde which swells up heart-rendingly whenever there is scene without dialogue. Then there is the cheerful mix and match casting decisions: Dunst and Gainsbourg as sisters; Hurt and Rampling as Dunst and Gainsbourg’s parents; Sutherland as Gainsbourg’s husband. (And then just to confuse it real life father and son Stellan and Alexander Skarsgard playing father and son.) And having Jack Bauer in a European art film works beautifully.
Melancholia lost out to Tree of Life at Cannes and there is an odd symmetry between this paean to our demise and Malick’s ode to creation. I suspect many will describe this as empty and pretentious but for me it carries real substance. Funny and despairing, stark and opulent, heartfelt and evasive, haunting and beautiful, it is one of Von Trier’s finest creations.
