Melancholia (2011)

You won't be disappointed!

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

It tells us the mood practically constant in those who suffer depression. This film shows us two sisters, Justine and Claire who form two narrative nuclei united among themselves. It is the most narrative film of the three (Antichrist and Nymphomaniac) and at the same time it is the one that contains the highest questions. It even seems that the Dane enters into mysticism. Justine fears for her life, Claire for her death. These fearful attitudes towards the existence, vulnerability and scarce transcendence of the human being are the conductors of this film, and again, the sisters are punished during the film by the terror that their own nature and instincts give them.

It's a slow two hours and 15 minutes of film about sadness and isolation. Only people with a tranquil state of mind should ever bother watching this film.An eight-minute montage teaser played in slo-mo serves as a summary for the film itself, all the while being accompanied with the most fitting music, the prelude from Wagner's Tristan and Isolde. We are introduced to the three characters whose ultimate destruction we'll get to witness at the end of the film. The breathtaking image of the weary-trodden face of blonde Justine (Kirsten Dunst) with a bunch of birds falling down from the sky, who is later then seen to be wearing a wedding gown running across a forest with vines sprouting from trees dragging and holding on to her. Brunette Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is also seen running but carrying her kid Leo (Cameron Spurr), the golf course they are treading on seemingly have turned into a muddy quicksand, making it difficult for her to run across it. And then interspersed in between were scenes where the planets seem to be floating and waltzing in space, planets barely colliding are made to look like an eerily romantic visual of two planets on the verge of smooching. A definitive WTF moment. Mr. Trier made an Earth doomsday scenario so beautiful to gawk at. (But, hey, wait, I also live in that planet, me thought.) Then the explosive end as the small rogue planet diving into the Earth as if being swallowed. Having witnessed that, I almost stained my boxers.The film is divided in two parts, each focusing on the two sisters, who were seen in the introductory montage. Justine, who over the course of the film is revealed to be a copy writer and have been promoted as an art director by her boss while still at her wedding, and brunette Claire, who happily married to a castle/hotel operator. There are plenty of ways on how to approach and interpret the narrative of the film but what stands out are elements that transcends these interpretations. Whatever which way one chooses to view the film, it would still be a cinematic treat. One is the various characters' way of dealing with the impeding destruction of Earth by the planet Melancholia, this is much more pronounced in Justine's part of the story because the first part for the most part introduced the family at the center of the story. The other is the seeming irrationality of the path which the rogue planet traversing the solar system, that uncertainty just making it freaking worse on their nerves. Such unreliability in the predictions that would want to make people to kill whoever made them in the first place, like John (Kiefer Sutherland), Claire's husband, who reassures his wife at first that because Melancholia has first bypassed Mercury and Venus, and so Earth will be bypassed too, and it would be later revealed that he kind enough to spare others from doing that murderous deed to him. Also, the breathtaking cinematography capturing those visuals, and the gorgeous location that is the representation of opulence. It is worth noting that various reviews have mentioned the film's connection to Jean Genet's play The Maids. The way the story is told at the vantage point of two sisters is the most obvious one but perhaps it is the themes explored there that somehow illustrates and not illustrates the isolation that these two sisters has to go through. Nothing could be more disorientating than seeing two sources of natural light at night time, the moon and the rogue planet at the other side. This could be thought of as an homage to the iconic palace grounds scene in Last Year at Marienabad. But this time, the dual shadows of those very much manicured trees gives that creepy feeling. Pretty insane sight to behold which was enough to drive Justine a bit unhinged as she stares at that bluish-it Melancholia.As the film ends and the rogue planet begins to crash on Earth, the kid's innocence has somehow kind of given him that serenity that helped Leo to easily accepted his fate. Justine, having felt that the world betrayed her and has condemned the world as evil ended up not care much for it's destruction. And Claire is the only one who is tense, having settled in to her upper-crust life and living a fairy tale dream almost and for her to suddenly lose it all, that made it really tough on her, and it is understandable that she is the one who is visibly terrified as they all met their catastrophic end.The virtue of this film is in the simplicity of its vague premise that also imparts a philosophically profound exploration of the mysteries surrounding an arrival of an impending gloom.My rating: A-plus.

Film Review: "Melancholia" (2011)Justine & Michael just married. A white stretch limousine drives a pathway toward a castle-like building. The final corner gets too tight, because no one bothered to measure the length of the vehicle in relations to the width of the corner. Justine, performed by two-edged actress Kirsten Dunst, wearing a white wedding dress, sends the chauffeur out of the driver seat and gives it a try. She does not succeed. Physics made it impossible to maneuver the limousine around the corner. The couple ends up walking the last meters to the wedding dinner party.Director Lars von Trier builds a maelstrom of human emotion with his opening sequence to "Melancholia", beginning with super-slow-motion Phantom HD shots accompanied under Richard Wagner's "Tristan & Isolde" overture, making clear it its not your everyday movie. The topics that are illuminated, especially between the sisters Justine & Claire, portrayed by concerns-pushing actress Charlotte Gainsbourg, come full circle by switching character along the way. The one always concerned, anxious and frightful. The other outgoing, back-boned and daring. Together they dominate a family that could not be more splitted into pieces. Father, played by John Hurt, and mother, played by Charlotte Rampling, do not talk anymore. Wedding Planner, played by actor Udo Kier, constantly on the verge of a nervous-breakdown. Husband of Claire, played by Kiefer Sutherland, remains a rock at point break of an approaching solar eclipse, which will inbalance the entire planet earth to its core. Freshman husband Michael, portrayed by vulnerability showing Alexander Skarsgard, has not a blink of chance to satisfy his wedded wife Justine, who already given in to other pleasures at the party. Then last but not least, actor Stellan Skargard, who plays Justine's boss with no retreats even on her wedding day, keeping business talk of promotion alive. It comes as it must come. They all survive a disastrous day before each and every one needs to fight for survival in an upcoming new planet on collision course with Earth.The story also originally written by Lars von Trier compliments such comprehension on human emotion and behavior that this independent picture, shot in Sweden of Summer 2010, prevails the test of time of being surprising, tense, daring and entertaining even after several revisits.© 2017 Felix Alexander Dausend (Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC)

Straight off the bat, if you've had a hard week at work and you just want to chuck a DVD on and get lost in a movie for a couple of hours, this is not it!I cannot for one second say that I 'enjoyed' this movie. It is difficult to watch and literally has no hope or any shred of happiness in it.That said, the title of the film gives you a clue that this is going to a movie dealing with a depression and this is why it gets 7 stars from me. Kirsten Dunst is great in this film. You live every moment of the movie with her as she takes you through the mental torment of severe depression. Kiefer Sutherland also plays his part well.I can certainly say that I appreciate this movie for what it is. An unglorified look at what it is to be depressed and to not feel like there is a way out. I guess my main issue with the film is that it is too long and it borders on boring in places, but if you know what you are getting yourself in for, it's worth a look.