Click here for the Another Earth review!
To say that Lars Von Trier is a
polarizing director is like saying smoking cigarettes are bad for
you: it's a fundamental fact. An experimental Danish filmmaker that
LOVES to push buttons in both his films and his endlessly
entertaining interviews, Von Trier has been creating critically
divisive films since the late 1970s. You can always tell you're
reading a review of a Von Trier film because critics will break out
their biggest and fanciest words to either praise him or decry him, a
lot of these reviews often turning into miniature theses that you
just might need a dictionary to decipher.
After several little known releases,
Von Trier really put himself on the map with 1996's Breaking The
Waves, which served as
his introduction to a larger portion of the film viewing world,
including myself. Personally, I was spellbound by his SHARPLY unique
visual style and deep storytelling, while at the same time finding
the film very accessible compared to a lot of the foreign films I'd
seen up to that point. Really, Breaking The Waves is solely
responsible for opening my tastes up and getting me interested in
films deeper than ones such as Star Wars or Horror
Franchise #8,409.
Von Trier likes to make his films into
trilogies, but based about themes instead of a continuing storyline.
He started with his “Europe” trilogy detailing Europe's dark
history, then followed it up with the “Golden Heart” trilogy,
which was launched by Breaking The Waves and showed us three
women with kind hearts being put into awful circumstances. His next
trilogy, “USA: Land of Opportunities” remains unfinished as the
third film, Wasington, will likely not get made at this point
but one can always hope.
His latest trilogy is “Depression”,
which consists of today's film along with Antichrist and
Nymphomaniac. His most personal group of films, these deal
with the effects of depression (duh) and are based around a lot of
his life experiences as he suffers from crippling depression at
times. These have also been BY FAR his most controversial films,
which is quite the achievement given his filmography of increasingly
controversial films. His work has always featured explicit images
with a heavy focus on sexuality, but the Depression trilogy kicked
these elements into hyperdrive.
Melancholia is definitely the most tame
of the trilogy, as I've always gotten the impression this is Von
Trier's most personal film to date and he really wanted to convey the
effects of depression without having it be distracted by anything
else. This is easily one of my favourite films of recent years and
I've seen it on multiple occasions, each time finding something new
to think about for weeks afterward. So without any further ado, I
present A Ghoul Versus Melancholia!
We open with a very sullen looking
Kirsten Dunst staring directly at us as the very haunting score from
the prelude to Richard Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde
plays. Dead birds rain down from the sky behind her. The entire
scene is shot in ultra slow motion that would make Zack Snyder
jealous as we see multiple images flash by. We see the painting
“Hunters in the Snow” by Pieter Breughel, in which we see dead
leaves falling upon the eponymous hunters. This painting was also
used in acclaimed Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky's films Solaris
and the Mirror, Von Trier being a HUGE fan of his fellow
director.
The next shot is arguably one of the
most important in the movie, as we see actress Charlotte Gainsbourg
carrying the young son of her character Claire across a golf course.
In the background a flag informs us she's on the 19th
hole. Remember this for later, there might be a quiz. The next shot
is of a black horse falling to the ground, followed by Dunst and more
dead birds. Next is Dunst, Gainsbourg, and the boy all in formal
attire, Dunst now wearing a wedding dress.
This switches to a shot of Dunst in a
black shirt, holding up her hands and watching small bolts of
lightning shoot out of her finger tips. Of all the scenes in the
film, this has always been the most incomprehensible to me. Dunst is
back to the wedding dress as she runs across the golf course, or
rather tries to as strange gray vines are wrapped around her legs and
impeding her. The final shot is of Melancholia, the planet the movie
is named after, violently slamming into the Earth. This was a
gorgeous opening, one of the most striking I've ever seen and was
GREATLY enhanced by the score.
The film begins properly with a title
card that says “Part One: Justine”, as we meet Dunst's character
Justine on what is ostensibly the happiest day of her life. She's
just gotten married and is being driven in a limo to her reception
along with her hunky husband Michael, played by the dashing Alexander
Skarsgard. One problem though: their limo driver is THE WORST DRIVER
IN HISTORY. We see he must have learned everything he knows from
Austin Powers as he gets them stuck on a narrow road, Michael and
Justine forced to take the wheel personally to get to their
reception.
Because of this tomfoolery, they arrive
two hours late at the reception, which is being held on the ULTRA
LAVISH estate of Justine's sister Claire and her new brother-in-law
John. John is played by Kiefer Sutherland, and he is awesome as ever
in the role. He has this thinly veiled contempt for Claire's family
that is just SEETHING, for reasons we'll soon see why. Claire and
John both bitch out the newlyweds for being so late, but Justine is
more interested in a red star in the sky. John, who is some kind of
multimillionaire scientist or something, tells her it's the star
Antares.
Before entering the mansion, Justine
takes Michael to the stables to see her horse Abraham, the same horse
from the opening. Inside, we're introduced to the most expensive
wedding planner in the world, played by the epically creepy Udo Kier.
Kier has been in nearly all of Von Trier's movies, as well as pretty
much every movie ever as his filmography boasts over 200 roles. It's
surreal to see him play a role where he isn't torturing or killing
someone, but really there's nothing he can't do. He is quite upset
at the newlyweds wrecking his carefully orchestrated ceremony, but
handles it with professionalism.
At the front of the house at the sign
in table there's a jar of beans where each guest tries to guess how
many are in there to win a prize, Justine ignoring it as she enters
the main hall. We meet Justine's parents, Dexter and Gaby. Dexter
is played by the incredible John Hurt of- geez, you name it. He's
been in so many memorable films, Alien, Midnight Express, Rob Roy,
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull- YIKES!
Alright, moving on... Gaby is played by Charlotte Rampling- huh,
that's weird. Charlotte Rampling is playing a character that has to
deal with a guy named Dexter? Where have I seen that before? Oh right, the Dexter's final
season reviews I never got around to finishing because those episodes
ARE HORRIBLE.
We get a brief glimpse of what life
must have been like being raised by these two as Dexter is only
interested in flirting with anything wearing a dress while Gaby is a
stone cold bitch that skipped the wedding and then gives a toast
saying how much she hates marriage, especially when it related to her
daughters. Justine's boss Jack, whom she works for as a copy writer
for his advertising company, also gives a toast that he segues into
wanting her to write a new tag line TONIGHT for his latest modeling
campaign. Well, this is going to be an interesting party to say the
least. Jack is played by Stellan Skarsgard, who, in addition to
being Alexander's father, is another actor that Von Trier loves to
use in his films. Stellar is ANOTHER endlessly great actor in this
film's all-star cast, and he just nails down the asshole boss
character here.
The effect of these events on Justine
is almost immediate, as her joy begins to plummet. Claire pulls her
into a room and warns about not making a scene, which pisses me off
because this is a wedding and I want to see someone thrown into the
wedding cake dammit! Justine goes outside and takes a golf cart for
a ride around the course, gazing at Antares the entire time. She also
stops to relieve herself in the grass, because she's classy like
that.
When she returns to the reception, we
see her absence has not gone unnoticed. The night gets more and more
awkward as her mood worsens, irritating the guests more and more.
Leo, Claire's young son from the opening, is getting tired and wants
to go to sleep so Justine volunteers to put him to bed. She ends up
falling asleep with him, Claire finding her and waking her up.
Justine talks about how she's trying to get through this, but feels
“heavy and wooly” gray yarn is wrapped around her legs dragging
her down. This should sound familiar if you saw the opening, as
nearly every shot from that will come to pass. John, who has had it
up to here with Gaby's attitude, silently shoots her in the head with
a pistol. No wait, that's what he WANTED to do. Instead he packs
her bags and THROWS THEM OUTSIDE, because there is never a moment
that he's awake where Sutherland isn't doing something awesome.
When it's time for the cake cutting
Justine is once again absent, the wedding planner telling Claire his
wedding has been ruined and he will no longer acknowledge Justine.
Michael finds his bride and takes her to a library as we learn she
suffers from serious depression, which brings up one of the biggest
flaws in this movie. We'll learn her depression is extreme, so why
in a family that has more money than Bill Gates, does she never get
any help?
We never hear a single mention of therapy or medication,
and it really makes you wonder why she's allowed to do anything given
her condition. Trying to cheer Justine up, Michael gives her his
wedding present: a picture of an apple grove he bought for her. He
asks her to carry the picture with her and whenever she gets sad to
look at it to raise her spirits. She promises to do this and they
begin to kiss, but then Justine abruptly says goodbye in a rather
bitchy tone and leaves. Michael sees the picture is lying on the
couch.
John confronts Justine over her
behaviour, making her promise to be happy after the massive amounts
of money he's spent for her wedding. This only serves to tick her
off more, so it's likely she'll keep her word to him as well as she
did with Michael. Operation: Let's All Piss Off The Clinically
Depressed Mental Patient kicks into full swing as Jack introduces
Justine to his nephew Tim, whom he has just hired for his company.
Tim is played by Brady Corbet, who worked with Sutherland on the
fifth season of 24 but to me he'll ALWAYS be Peter from
Michael Haneke's remake of Michael Haneke's film Funny Games.
That's a film I'm dying- ahh, deading?- to review but it's really
hard to find the original 1997 version to contrast it again. Another
day...
Jack invited Tim for the sole purpose
of having him badger Justine until she can think of a tag line, which
probably makes him a worse boss to work for than the Joker at this
point. I mean seriously, did he think this would actually work? Why
would he think it's okay to annoy the shit out of a mentally
disturbed woman on her WEDDING DAY? Despite the way Justine has been
treating Michael, I am firmly on her side after watching her friends
and family constantly berate her. Although, this could be one of
those pesky allegories you get in films that aren't about CGI robots,
where Von Trier is illustrating how the “normal” world treats
people with severe depression so character logic doesn't HAVE to
apply here.
Justine basically tells them to fuck
off and leaves, passing the wedding planner who puts his hand in
front of his face so he doesn't have to look at her. HA! Justine
returns to the library where she finds Michael and Claire likely
talking smack about her, her husband leaving as she enters. Claire
tells her off again and also leaves, because let's kick Justine while
she's down. Justine goes about setting up a series of art books in
the room, all containing very violent images of decapitation and the
like. “Hunters in the Snow” is among them. The party heads
outside, Justine doing her best to act happy but this fades very
quickly. The reception finally ends, the newlyweds returning to
their room for the night. Michael tries to engage her in sex, but
once again she brushes him off and leaves.
A horrible realization begins to dawn
across Michael's face as he watches her exit, as it just hit him what
he's gotten himself into. He doesn't know the half of it though,
because the next scene is of her walking around the golf course again
with Tim following her. When he bugs her about the tag line again,
she responds by pushing him to the ground and FUCKING HIM. Wow, you
really hit the jackpot with this one Mikey! This scene has some
unintentional hilarity because they're having sex on a sand trap,
which is definitely the best place to expose your sexual organs. And
you thought Justine had sand in her vagina BEFORE this happened...
After failing as hard on your wedding
night as much as possible, Justine goes back inside to talk to her
father. She really wants him to stay the night, but he's much more
into the possibility of going home with one of the fine ladies he met
during the party. She talks him into staying, having John's butler
set him up a room. Jack and Tim show up again, Jack firing Tim for
not securing the precious tag line. Justine, beyond sick of Jack's
shit by now, tells him off in the most spectacular manner possible
before storming off in her trademarked fashion. It's safe to say she
no longer has a job. What else can she lose this dreadful night?
Oh, how about her husband?
We see Michael head outside, suitcase
in hand. He says he thought things would be different, to which she
bitterly answers with “What did you expect?”. That's a fair
question, really. Since the film's given us no back story on the
two, one really does wonder what their life was like before the
wedding. Michael HAD to have known she wasn't exactly balanced, so
why did he marry her? Tim rushes in to secure the rebound, but
Justine crashes his little fantasy by bringing up it probably isn't
the greatest idea in the history of ideas. Tim is inclined to agree
with her before leaving.
As the wedding planner packs his things
up, he tells Claire the number of beans in the vase was 678. She
does not care in the SLIGHTEST. We cut to the next morning, where
Justine learns Dexter skipped out on her to leave with one of the
women he met. This has probably been the two worst days of her life,
I hope nothing else bad happens to her... for instance, a planet
crashing into Earth and killing EVERYONE. Claire takes Justine
horseback riding, but even this goes wrong as Abraham refuses to
cross a small wooden bridge. Looking around, Justine notices Antares
is now gone from the sky.
Click here for Part 2!
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