Melancholia made me dizzy -- literally and figuratively. It's "one of those movies" that uses sloppy, seasick hand-held camera-work (or a simulacrum of such) to create a supposedly "edgy" feel that, maybe, once upon a time, suggested cinema verité documentaries and super-low-budget guerrilla-made features. The thing is, it actually carries none of that information anymore -- the look has been so thoroughly co-opted by 2nd-rate Hollywood television series and 3rd-rate movies that it is nothing today but a purely stylistic conceit, and one that is predictable, pretentious and irritating. At best you cease to notice it; at worst, as when after Kirsten Dunst delivers a particularly strong line near the end of the movie and the camera operator does a quick push-in-zoom to emphasize her emotions, it comes off as the aesthetic of cheesy reality television. Ironically, in its effort to seem "real", the actual result is to emphasize that you are watching something highly stylized, and not in an interesting way.
All these artistic failures of the camera style only add insult to injury, as the movie literally had me covering my eyes for long portions, as I sat there in a cold, clammy sweat, ready to stumble into the men's room and vomit if it became necessary.
That I sat through such physical uncomfortableness to make it to the end of this movie is a testament to how otherwise compelling and interesting it is. It's a weird combination: Last Year at Marienbad meets Armageddon... but it's mostly Marienbad with Armageddon as the scenic, rather than dramatic, backdrop. In its languid, dreamy pace, to me it actually captured far better the psychological state of such an impending, magnificent disaster than the typical pedal-to-the-metal Hollywood blockbuster. You felt the sick fear, the anticipation, the disbelief, and mostly the sadness of everything. More than almost any movie I can think of, Melancholia communicates the immense scope and power of the oncoming destructive force: a force that is literally not on a human scale and thus cannot be comprehended by humans, except in the most primitive of ways -- holding up a handmade wire loop to see if it is growing nearer or far; watching animals for a cue how to respond; tasting the diminishing oxygen in the air and knowing... knowing.
The way Justine's mental illness dovetails with the psychological suffering that all will soon experience is gracefully done, and you are left to wonder: were her mental problems simply the effect of her prescience, her foreknowledge of things to come (as we see in the opening sequence, which to me is in retrospect a look at her dreams and hallucinations), or is there something deeper wrong with her which coincidentally makes her more sensitive to the oncoming storm? "Life on earth is evil," she says, making you feel that she herself is some alien, malignant force that is in opposition to the everyday, biological desires of the other animals: she rebuffs her husband; beats her horse cruelly; loathes her sister and her boss. She is a force to be reckoned with, even before the planet Melancholia makes its appearance.
Apart from the glaring misstep of the camera-work (besides my suffering, something drove several people from the screening early, and I suspect it was that rather than the story, though without exit interviews, who knows for sure?), this is a superb movie that you won't forget anytime soon. It's a sad tale, full of darkness, both on the macro scale (the planet), and the micro (the unhappy wedding and all the bitter relationships revealed therein). It's not going to send you out into the streets with fresh wind in your sails to conquer the bad guys in your life. But it will make you think, make you look at the sky differently, perhaps, and make you wonder what life is all about anyway, and that's what you look for in the movies, after all, isn't it? That and some great special effects -- and Melancholia has some super special effects, too.
All these artistic failures of the camera style only add insult to injury, as the movie literally had me covering my eyes for long portions, as I sat there in a cold, clammy sweat, ready to stumble into the men's room and vomit if it became necessary.
That I sat through such physical uncomfortableness to make it to the end of this movie is a testament to how otherwise compelling and interesting it is. It's a weird combination: Last Year at Marienbad meets Armageddon... but it's mostly Marienbad with Armageddon as the scenic, rather than dramatic, backdrop. In its languid, dreamy pace, to me it actually captured far better the psychological state of such an impending, magnificent disaster than the typical pedal-to-the-metal Hollywood blockbuster. You felt the sick fear, the anticipation, the disbelief, and mostly the sadness of everything. More than almost any movie I can think of, Melancholia communicates the immense scope and power of the oncoming destructive force: a force that is literally not on a human scale and thus cannot be comprehended by humans, except in the most primitive of ways -- holding up a handmade wire loop to see if it is growing nearer or far; watching animals for a cue how to respond; tasting the diminishing oxygen in the air and knowing... knowing.
The way Justine's mental illness dovetails with the psychological suffering that all will soon experience is gracefully done, and you are left to wonder: were her mental problems simply the effect of her prescience, her foreknowledge of things to come (as we see in the opening sequence, which to me is in retrospect a look at her dreams and hallucinations), or is there something deeper wrong with her which coincidentally makes her more sensitive to the oncoming storm? "Life on earth is evil," she says, making you feel that she herself is some alien, malignant force that is in opposition to the everyday, biological desires of the other animals: she rebuffs her husband; beats her horse cruelly; loathes her sister and her boss. She is a force to be reckoned with, even before the planet Melancholia makes its appearance.
Apart from the glaring misstep of the camera-work (besides my suffering, something drove several people from the screening early, and I suspect it was that rather than the story, though without exit interviews, who knows for sure?), this is a superb movie that you won't forget anytime soon. It's a sad tale, full of darkness, both on the macro scale (the planet), and the micro (the unhappy wedding and all the bitter relationships revealed therein). It's not going to send you out into the streets with fresh wind in your sails to conquer the bad guys in your life. But it will make you think, make you look at the sky differently, perhaps, and make you wonder what life is all about anyway, and that's what you look for in the movies, after all, isn't it? That and some great special effects -- and Melancholia has some super special effects, too.