Sunday 2 October 2011

Melancholia


Seems to be an attempt at making depression sexy, however it's as boring and pretentious as you'd expect wish fulfillment for manic depressives to be.

3 comments:

  1. Is this the "planets collide; sisters bicker" film?

    Your review makes me want to see it more

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  2. I suppose it would be trite to complain about the 'science' behind this film, as it's obviously supposed to be at least partly metaphorical, but it's staggeringly implausible on so many levels.

    Still, I can't really explain why, but I wasn't bored by this film; instead, I watched the whole thing with a kind of detached and oddly sordid fascination - never empathy. I've heard it said that Von Trier makes emotional pornography and this seemed to me to be true of Melancholia. In fact, one scene was literal pornography thinly veiled as classical allusion.

    The beautifully shot super slow-mo at the start put me in mind of Antichrist and revisiting that film will be interesting. My initial reaction to it was that it was enthralling but uber-pretensious and ultimately hollow. The fact it stayed with me for such a long time after seeing it has made me want to watch it again. But I wonder whether this one will too...

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  3. Saw Antichrist again; it is brilliant. I appreciated it more second time around - not just thematically, but on a technical level that passed me by somewhat on first viewing: the sound design and cinematography are just stunning. I'm getting used to LVT's style I think - pretentious yes, but also unique and hypnotic.

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