Friday, October 07, 2011

And The Infinite Sadness

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I can't remember who said this so apologies for not giving you credit if you're someone who might happen to read this, and I'm paraphrasing so apologies if I mess up the original intent of what was even said, but Lars Von Trier's Melancholia is a big "Fuck you" to anyone who's ever told a depressed person that they shouldn't act as if it's the end of the world, because it is the end of the world, quite literally. There are several recent films Melancholia made me think of: Another Earth [review] with its dual planets and The Tree of Life [review] with its symphonic extension of an emotional vortex out through the cosmos most prominently, and the fact that I appreciated this movie much more than either of those seems a way to eke out why it worked on me while those ones did not.

And I suppose it mostly comes down to character and performance. Dunst and Gainsbourg are both marvelously, richly, aggressively off-putting, and in completely different yet entirely captivating ways. In Another Earth I really never got the sense that lead actress Brit Marling was effectively countering the headier science-fictional aspects with anything worth my time - oh okay, we're staring at some dust motes again, I should feel something here? Similarly in Tree of Life the actors, or perhaps it was simply the characters that Malick created out of the actors with his tinkering, left me cold. But not here. I was endlessly fascinated by Dunst's dull-faced doll performance, where everything would suddenly go slack and blank and awful, or the jittery ghoulishness that Gainsbourg so effortlessly exudes.



Why does a miseralbist like Von Trier work for me so thoroughly while one like Alejandro González Iñárritu fills me with rage? I suppose there's the humor, something Iñárritu seems to have no concept of. Von Trier sees the funny side of these self-involved insular little wrecks and builds plentiful punchlines around their behaviors - it's often edited like a comedy, especially in the first half at the wedding, only instead of somebody getting a pie in the face we cut to Dunst soaking in a tub while her groom waits to carve the cake, or we get another shot of Udo Keir slinking around with his hand fanned over his face.

But as awful as they're all being - holla Charlotte Rampling! - I still felt their awfulness reflecting in myself. Profoundly so, at times. Oh sure, Von Trier wallows. I don't know that a film attempting to capture the essence of depression so astutely on screen could not wallow, ya know? And I don't think I've ever had a film capture the essence of that feeling of not being able to get out of bed for days so well. I might not see much this year that will hit me in the gut like that simple moment at the dinner table when Kirsten breaks down because her favorite food tastes like ashes to her. And that even works on a metaphorical level, because the approach of this foriegn planet has been shown to alter the very air around the characters. Is it a panic attack or is all the air being sucked out of the atmospehere? Both! Neither! Everything! Nothing! Boom.
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2 comments:

Joe Reid said...

It's so funny how you and I can pick out the same things and come to such different conclusions. This is a great explanation of everything I didn't get out of the movie, so it's really illuminating, not to mention a great read.

Jason Adams said...

I've been meaning to comment on your review with something very similar, I just have to go and eat lunch first. So stay tuned! And thank you!