MELANCHOLIA (Lars Von Trier 2011)
MELANCHOLIA opens in NY and LA tomorrow, limited US release beginning in theaters November 18, 2011. This review came with the NYFF in September. You'll find the rest of it HERE.
LARS VON TRIER: MELANCHOLIA (2011)
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Alexander Skarsgård and Kirsten Dunst in Melancholia
The party's over now
The mid-May screening of Lars Von Trier's Melancholia at Cannes a couple of days after Terrence Malick's Tree of Life inspired many comparisons by critics. Mike D'Angelo of Onion AV Club even went so far as to imagine it was as if Von Trier had seen Tree of Life and made a feature film in 48 hours as a "rebuttal" to it. Both films have a cosmic sweep and both focus up close on troubled families. Von Trier's beautiful prologue, with its figures floating in super-slow-motion in a dramatic dark landscape to the sound of Wagner's Tristan and Isolde, as well as the much larger planet coming to splinter the earthn the second half, somehow together parallel Malick's images of orbs and galaxies floating through space balanced against his elder son brooding over and remembering his youth. If you play one film against the other the contrast in mood is as stark as the difference between Jessica Chastain's voiceovers about grace and affirmation in Tree of Life and Kirstun Dunst's declarations in Melancholia that the earth is "evil" and if obliterated will not be missed. Obviously Melancholia isn't a happy film. Dunst's Justine "knows things" and is sure there is no companionship or redemption awaiting us out in space (the recent sci-fi indie Another Earth notwithstanding). Tree of Life has doubts and sorrows too. One of its chief playbooks is the Book of Job. But it's also full of a sense of imminence and awe.
Continued HERE.
Ground Breaking, Breath Taking, But With Serious Flaws
Lars von Trier, the Danish director, melds both Stanley Kubrick cinematography with Lost in Translation (2003) immersive authenticity and relational dynamics of Margot at the Wedding (2007) along with a darker version of Koyannisqatsi (1983) to create a visually dazzling and acoustically enhanced film experience that in itself provokes intense melancholy. Trier also directs a much more difficult creative endeavor by choosing to use minimal dialogue and depending more on the behavioral performance and metaphysical, non-verbal nuances to communicate the movie’s impressions. It’s difficult not to be enthralled by the haunting and surrealistic visions that appear at the beginning of the movie with its patient immersive soaking up experience that von Trier has tapped into using the rich unique medium of film. Here, von Trier seems to be following in the footsteps of Andrey Tasrkovskiy’s Solaris (1972) with its long non-dialogue sequences and his emphasis on having the visual elements of the movie offer much of the understanding or awareness of the movie. Unfortunately with the complexity of this detailed and artfully stunning movie, a number of weaknesses arise later in the movie to diminish von Trier’s amazing work.
There is a Stanley Kubrick cinematographic approach to this movie suggestive of the influence of Kubrick’s own daring as revealed in his last movie as a director, Eyes Wide Shut (1999) that brought the audience into a mysterious world of a well-to-do couple who discovers an underground world of sexuality and darkness and then the light. In the first part of Melancholia, the audience is again brought into a mysterious world of a well-to-do couple who experience the ordinary but lavish experiences of a wedding and further into a world that appears to be unknowingly approaching an ultimate ending of darkness in some contrast to that of a more emotional rollercoaster Kubrick movie that has its audience tantalized and energized state rather than Trier’s more emotionally draining angst. Trier’s use of glimpses, almost discrete snapshots of details from personalized name places to a delicate simplistic yet elegantly laid food plate creates a sharply focused and carefully sensed sharpness and richness. Von Trier uses hand-held camera shots to emphasize the here and now moment, the immediacy of the experience, the brief zooming shot of Dexter (played by John Hurt) as the father’s speech. The role of reality and fantasy is blurred and blended as the notion of all these dramatized but immediate and easily, almost unscripted presentations are captured by the almost feasible belief (however unlikely, considering the eye behind the camera) that many of these shots emerging off the movie screen could just of been as easily captured by most audiences members themselves with a quality digital video camera. Nevertheless, other movies in a variety of movie genres have lately incorporated this more gritty, raw cinematography to great effect, including: Winter’s Bone (2010); The Wrestler (2008); United 93 (2006), Jarhead (2005), Passion of the Christ (2004), and The Company (2003). Von Trier and the script continues nicely with the non-verbal expressions, those moments of non-action (between sisters) where communication continues and the deeper emotional feelings receive careful attention, a well-balanced, and invitation by the director to become more involved in the totality of human experience, representing human perceptions of caring and tenderness, hurt and pain, that however are easily transformed into selfishness, and the exposure of the human frailties of people, the underbelly of the superficial presentation of societal and familial images, correct behavior colliding with individual desires, wishes, hopes, dreams, such elements often left out of most movies. Additionally, von Trier uses Kubrick lighting as with the outside of the wedding hall…yet the handheld photography reflects more of an independent feel, less polished, more photographic authentically designed set. He also uses a lot of sound of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey as with the Justine’s alone, meditative scene before the spouse’s wedding speech. Von Trier with usually great success incorporates a number of densely packed yet patiently photographed collages of scenes with emotional poignancy and intimacy as when Justine and her fiancé become physically aroused away from the wedding guests or when Justine and John share a moment while her nephew is sleeping.
One of the persistent weaknesses of the movie is its lack of adaptive music and nor inclusion of a variety of sonorous melodies that would better enhance or lend themselves to the various different scenes in the movie. The horse scene, as an example, towards the end of Part I like Solaris (1972) artistically visually powerful yet von Trier continues with the same strain of music that does not even come close to reaching the captivating or enhancing effectiveness as the musical delight of The Devil Wears Prada (2006); the music of Francis Lai in A Man and A Woman (1966); or even Mark Isham’s wonderful fusion of period music in The Cooler (2003). Another weakness for me was the inclusion of well-known music and well-known actors with no attempt at disguising their well known public personas as their presence detracted from the cinematographic authenticity of the scenes that von Trier was attempted to create. Additionally, Von Trier’s focus on the fascination of the routine or the mundane throughout the movie, unlike Lost in Translation (2003) seems at times to become monotonous as in real life to the point of boredom because a few of his shots, such as the solo hot tub scene midway through Part I, like Sean Penn’s Into the Wild (2007) seem to be more about showing off the talent and ability of the director rather than the movie itself, but to a lesser extent than Mr. Penn’s movie.
Von Trier manages to present a deeper and more richly diverse attitude, feelings, beliefs that ripple and change the major characters in the movie (Justine, Claire, and John) throughout the movie. Yet by the end of the movie, each of these characters seem to consist of a variety of personas and conflicting personalities that are not really well tied together as individual identities, particularly John’s character towards the end of the movie, appears conveniently to have a psychotic break without warning or understanding, almost as if this secret is kept deliberately by the director so that he can offer a dramatic twist as part of the climax, nothing more. Justine’s erratic behavior also seems sometimes wide of the mark and her shifts in mood and beliefs sometimes appear somewhat manipulative for dramatic and shock effect rather than derived from the authentic nature of the basic character of Justine herself.
The weakest and perhaps a fatal flaw in this movie is the unresolved cinematic conflict between von Trier’s focus on immersive authenticity, portraying the richness of the moment and on maintaining the authenticity of understanding and comprehension of the motivations and feelings giving rise to the behaviors of Justine, Claire, and John occurring on the screen. At a running time of 2 hours and 15 minutes, for von Trier to be unable to edit and incorporate the human narrative element successfully in this movie is almost a marked failure in itself. And it appears that von Trier was unable to maintain this balance as more and more the audience almost like the wedding guests are being led in a way that doesn’t allow for anyone to really penetrate the veil of secrecy, hidden agendas (such as with Justine and her boss) perspectives that carry the plot of the primary characters. The audience even as von Trier maintains a vibrant sensory of sounds and sights to delight and amaze its theatrical guests, at the same, they are also being led more like sheep as the movie extras without the benefit of really allowing the audience into the actual vital mental workings of Justine, Claire, or John themselves. The audience is left mostly with amazing visions of the planet melancholia and the surrealistic misty outdoor scenes and artistic flaming wedding balloons floating lazily into the air, while the actual plot becomes dramatically and mysteriously ludicrous with sexual outbursts that defy explanation as the marriage itself descends into some black hole, almost swallowed up. Unfortunately, the hidden motivations are so obscure and taxing for the audience where its apparent the characters themselves retain their own inner selves but when the director is presenting such vivid sensory images, sights and sounds, and photographic art that to avoid and make diffuse the internal mental workings of the characters is to pull apart the important symmetry of the entire movie, weakening its bonds and integrity and by which at the end of the movie, the audience seemingly is not any closer to understanding or being able to further penetrate or connect in a truly comprehensive, authentic way to what has been the primary focus its characters.