Sunday, January 8, 2012

Movie Review: "Melancholia"

Melancholia
Directed by: Lars Von Trier
Starring: Kristen Dunst, Charollette Gainsbourg, Stellan Skarsgaard, Keifer Sutherland
Rated: R for some graphic nudity and sexual content and language

The opening of Lars Von Trier's Melancholia depicts the destruction of the Earth in stoically dramatic super slow-motion. The imagery is a powerful and striking, but says very little. The next two hours follow suit. Von Trier tries to compare the depression of the human soul to that of the actual destruction of the world. He tries to craft it in this realistic-allegorical settings that legendary filmmaker's like Ingmar Bergman used, which are both symbolic and narrative in form. But Von Trier's film is so painstakingly odd and disconnected, one can never be for sure exactly what is happening, nevertheless what meaning is supposed to be derived. Is the characters' odd behavior due to their knowledge that the world is ending, or just because it's a room full of moronic swine? By the middle of the second "chapter" of the film, I was cheering for the planet Melancholia to collide and destroy the Earth, simply to rid us of these pesky characters. If you are trying to avoid depression, then simply avoid Melancholia.

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