A Melancholy Bridezilla

On a recent(ish) episode of Girls On Film, the ladies and I drooled over the briliance of Nicholas Roegg's Don't Look Now. In terms of visuals, it's arguably one of modern cinema's most influential genre films while also boasting excellent performances and a solid base of emotional connection. I would give it four stars without a blink, but here's the funny thing: I don't in any way agree with its theme.

Don't Look Now is ultimately a film about fate and predeterminism. Sure, there are other forces at work, but in my SPOILERY opinion, we are never to believe that Donald Sutherland's character ever really had a chance. His death was scheduled as soon as we first caught that glimpse of red on his slide, and no amount of dwarf ducking could prevent it.

I am not a believer in the idea that one's fate is ever sealed, but in no way does that detract from my appreciation and enjoyment of Don't Look Now. I bring this up because Lars Von Trier's Melancholia is a film that I simply don't agree with, one so seeped in a literal depression and conviction that the world might as well explode because it has virtually nothing good that deserves to survive.

I disagree, and unlike a film that works on other merits, I don't think Melancholia is otherwise strong enough to stand on its thesis.

But it's still really pretty.

Quick Plot: A gorgeous overture follows plays over striking imagery as Earth meets what we'll later learn is the comet Melancholia. Sticks are whittled, children carried, horses fallen, and explosions imminenent as we move into the main meat of the dinner, Chapter 1, Justine.

Played by a wonderfully understated Kirsten Dunst, Justine is a beautiful bride and successful copywriter faking smiles on her wedding day. The groom is kind and handsome but dull as a prison spork and the venue--a sprawling golf course estate owned and lorded over by millionaire brother-in-law Keifer Sutherland--as cold as it is luxurious. Though the wedding photos are worthy of a magazine spread, the marriage--SPOILER ALERT, if that's possible when the first five minutes of the film tell us the world blows up anyway--ends before morning as Justine's depression is simply too crippling for any anniversary.

The second part of Melancholia focuses more on Justine's put-upon older sister Claire, played by Antichrist goddess Charlotte Gainsburg. It's been some time since the failed wedding and the new, more pressing issue of the upper class is the movement of Melancholia. Claire worries that it will hit Earth, while her husband (Sutherland as John) insists the world is safe. Once a now dingier and Dunstier Justine arrives, the dangers of cometary collision become more pressing.

Melancholia presents two different viewpoints on the state of the world: one that it's a place worth saving because it has good in it (Claire) and the other, that it's a giant wad of chewing gum with hatred and awfulness sticking out every germ-ridden end. Since this is a film by Lars Von Trier, you can guess which side wins.

And that's my ultimate problem with the film. Yes, it's also quite slow and (duh) pretentious, but I often say the same about Michael Haneke movies and ultimately deal out positive reviews. Like Von Trier, Haneke doesn't necessarily see the world as an oyster and often focuses on extreme acts of onscreen cruelty, but there's usually some point or theme to think upon later with some agreement or intelligent rebuttal.

But what is that for Melancholia? That the world is best seen as something to be destroyed? That it's not fit for a pleasant, imaginative child like Claire's son Leo to play in? Where Haneke's The White Ribbon was a deceptively simple town biography about the absence of innocence, Melancholia feels like an overly beautiful diatribe on how the whole world should just go to hell.

I suppose that if you're viewing the film as a portrait of depression, maybe it achieves success. Justine's progression from uncomfortable bride to the calm in the light of a meteor does work from a certain perspective. It's validation for her negativity, as is the all-too easy (SPOILER ALERT) suicide of John, the previous symbol of cultural normality. That John would leave his family at their hour of need just feels easy, much like my main beef with the villain's final act of cowardice in The Woman.

How is Justine's stick fort any stronger a symbol than Claire's idea of sipping wine with classical music? Are we supposed to stand behind Justine when she insults her sister for wanting to survive? I do think Melancholia gave me a window into Justine's world in its first half, as her inability to play the perfect wife felt true and sad, rather than grating or disrespectful. It's the film's latter half that ruffled my Bjork swan dress feathers, the idea that this is not a world worth fighting for and to pretend differently is just a lie. I like wine and scenic porches and the innocence of youth, and if using those things to confront death means I'm wrong, then I just don't understand why sitting on grass surrounded by sticks is that much righter.

Okay fine: when the apocalypse hits, I'm making nachos and drinking a bottle of Ommegang Three Philosophers Ale. I can't lie to you. 

High Points

In a depressing movie about the end of the world, every touch of dark humor counts and nowhere is this more apparent than Udo Kier's wedding planner


Though she doesn't reach the ungodly levels of Emily Watson, Kirsten Dunst finds the perfect notes to convey Justine's inner workings without ever resorting to easy showiness

Low Points

The aforementioned premature death of a key character feels like a cheat and I'm still miffed about it

Lessons Learned

American accents are a recessive gene

Putting your boss in your wedding party does not excuse you from working on your wedding day

The apocalypse is going to be realllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllly pretty

Tree of Melancholia

Film critic Jim Emerson had an interesting writeup of Melancholia, but his comment sections were even more enlightening. One reader started to draw comparisons to Tree of Life, which got me to thinking how the two films play together. Aside from their obvious compatibilities (both using small family stories behind the backdrop of the universe's death), the films do seem to look at our relationship to the world with different conclusions. I'm not itching to rewatch either anytime soon, but when I do, I'm definitely making it a double bill. 

See/Skip/Sneak In

While he's no flawless Paul Verhoeven, I consider myself a fan of Lars Von Trier, even when I can't say I like his work (meh to Dogville and Manderlay). Personally, Melancholia doesn't come near the heights of Breaking the Waves, Antichrist, or Dancer In the Dark because I just can't get behind the film's thesis. At the same time, it features some truly spectacular use of sound and imagery, along with the typical good female performances that come standard with a Von Trier tale. If you're not familiar with his work, then I certainly wouldn't start here (I'd say Emily Watson's mind-blowing work in Breaking the Waves is the best primer) but those who look forward to seeing whatever wackiness comes out of the world's craziest Dane will definitely get SOMETHING or another out of Melancholia. For me, it goes in that second tier and falls a little lower due to its negativity.


But what can I say? At heart, I'm just a cockeyed optimist.

A Walk In the Woods With One Foxy Antichrist

"If Ingmar Bergman had committed suicide, gone to hell, and come back to earth to direct an exploitation/art film for drive-ins, [Antichrist] is the movie he would have made." John Waters

Many writers--myself included--use the term ‘polarizing’ far too much. “You’ll either love it or hate it,” we say, often as a way to excuse ourselves from responsibility when you rent it and, well, hate it. 

*Note that I probably used these exact words, or appropriate synonyms, when discussing The House of the Devil. 

That being said, it’s hard to think of a better person that fits such a word as Lars Von Trier. Aside, perhaps, from the more universally praised Breaking the Waves (a film that boasts one of the best performances of the decade, in my humble opinion), the majority of his work sharply divides viewers like few other directors working today. 

You’ve probably heard a lot of people call Antichrist ridiculous, gratuitous, and misogynist. It’s easy to do so, especially if you look past, ignore, or simply miss what I think is a major clue to Von Trier--or, more appropriately, Antichrist’s--actual story and theme. It may indeed by ridiculous and more than a tad gratuitous, but much to the dismay of many Dogville hating kittens, this is not a film about the evil of women.

Quick Plot: In a stunningly haunting black and white opening to rival every diamond commercial ever, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe make love while their toddler tumbles out a window.

Yeah, this is not The Blind Side.

Thank Satan.

I can’t discuss Antichrist without blatantly going into plot detail, so for those of you who haven’t seen the film yet, accept one keyword for optimum viewing, then exit until viewed (oddly enough, now on Netflix Instant Watch but not DVD). Ready for your early present? Here it is:

Perception

Now scurry away like demonic little foxes and come back in 108 minutes.

As for the rest of you, let’s talk. 

Antichrist is a gorgeous and grotesque film, and also something pretty brilliant. Before you start throwing your hands up in the air or wagging rusty scissors at my clitoris, let me point to the most important moment in the story, the unlocking-the-box of Mullholland Drive, Rosebud itself, the talking fox.

Aside from being kind of adorable, it is, plain and simple, the turning point of the film because here is where we discover whose story is being told: He.

Dafoe, The Dude, The Not-Doctor, He of the Large Scrotal Sac, whatever. One of the biggest criticisms of Antichrist has been its misogyny and at the surface, that’s more than warranted. Gainsbourg’s She commits horrendous acts of violence and proves herself to have been a soulless mother who may very well have chosen an orgasm and thesis over the life of her child. Also, she can’t tell her right from her left, so she must be an idiot.

If you can’t tell from my Internet tone of voice, I’m being sarcastic. 

For the first half hour or so of Antichrist, we’re seeing genuine grief from She as He tries his own tricks to cure her. We’re near hypnotized by Gainsbourg and almost forget that Dafoe must be harnessing his own form of inner turmoil and guilt. Right when the fox opens his mouth, the film switches its neutral point of view, and everything that follows is filtered through Dafoe’s perspective.

Earlier signs point to his own instability and paranoia--think of the strange little infection He finds growing on his arm when he wakes up with the window open. But once we get to Chapter 3, nothing we see can really be trusted. Take, for example, the polaroid of Nicholas with his boots on the wrong feet. An innocent mistake a lot of parents (and occasionally, 28 year old women like me) probably make, but flashbacks--whose flashbacks?--reveal it to be total Shoegate and the sign of a truly twisted woman...mostly because that’s the image Dafoe now thrusts upon his wife. Back in the hospital, She tearfully accepted responsibility for the tragedy because she knew Nicholas could escape his crib, and now, with chaos free to reign, He rewrites the event to put all the blame on She. She saw Nicholas climb the table, purposely switched his boots, logged He’s privates and rammed a vice in his leg because, as the story now goes, women are inherently evil. 

Antichrist is not a misogynist movie, nor is it about misogyny. It's a story of the deepest despair a man and woman can possibly reach, and the horrors their own grief may then create out of desperation and avoidance. About a man who deals with his despair by assigning all the blame, both of this tragedy and the whole world, on the only other person left that can accept it. He is just as responsible for the death of their son, but his therapy involves dropping all of it on She, painting her as an almost medieval witch pent on the destruction of all the men in her life.

What actually happens in that third chapter? Having only watched the film once, I can’t really say just yet. I don’t know that I believe clitori are cut or crows broken. Violence occurs, but all we know of it is filtered through the eyes of a man in great emotional pain and in no way is his perspective to be trusted as fact. 

It’s His story, surreal, biased, judgmental and cowardly. Perhaps this is Lars Von Trier’s first film in recent years told from a male point of view. Not a bad start.

High Points

Dafoe and Gainsbourg go above and beyond the call of duty to give absolutely incredible and raw and brilliant performances

There’s an awful lot of shaky cam and extreme closeups, and they all work quite well to shake your own vantage point viewing a nightmare

Low Points

The very fact that Sandra Bullock will end Sunday night with an Oscar while Charlotte Gainsbourg will be home sipping wine

Did we need to see a certain closeup of a rarely seen (on non-porn) body part being mutilated? Probably not, but that’s Von Trier for ya and it’s as brave as it is disgusting

Lessons Learned

Putting your baby monitor on mute is about as logical as taking the caffeine out of coffee

The most important tool a grieving father can own is a wrench

Oak trees have an awful lot of acorns to shed just when you want to sleep

Rent/Bury/Buy

As long as you have a rough idea of what you’re in for, any film fan should at least see Antichrist with an open mind and possibly empty stomach. There’s a good chance you’ll despise the viewing experience, but just as sure a gamble that you’ll rate Antichrist a masterpiece. The performances are more than excellent, the imagery uniquely gorgeous, and the experience the kind that doesn’t come along every year. There’s also injured genitals and baby death, so it’s probably not the flick you tune in with the family between courses on Thanksgiving or pop in while babysitting a neighborhood child.

Unless you really hate your family or the neighborhood children.