You should know straight away that I hate Lars Von Trier. Everything I’ve seen of his work so far I have at least disliked and mostly hated, and I find his egotism and pretentiousness in real life (and that which bleeds into his work) irritating to say the least. Just look at his Nazi-defending antics at this year's Cannes Film Festival as a prime example of why I have a problem with him.
However, I am always willing to give any filmmaker another shot with each new film, even someone I dislike as much as Von Trier. To my surprise I didn’t hate his latest effort, Melancholia – that’s probably the best thing I can say about it from my own personal perspective.
Melancholia is a rather slow and depressing film, unsurprisingly given the name. True to Von Trier’s distinctive style, he takes his time. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn’t. The first half of the movie takes place after Kirsten Dunst’s troubled Justine gets married. The ensuing awkward family drama is sometimes interesting, other times it feels needlessly long and drawn out. Perhaps this perfectly captures how this situation would really play out in real life but nonetheless it makes for often frustrating viewing.
Along with the family drama, Melancholia deals with the possible impending doom of Earth as another planet (the planet of the title) may or may not collide with it. The film actually starts off showing us, after a sequence of shots done in super slow-mo, the two planets colliding before cutting to the start of the family drama. Is this a vision of the inevitable end and we are to take it as “this will happen and there’s nothing you can do about it?” Is it in Dunst’s troubled mind? Or is Von Trier just messing with us? To his credit you are entirely unsure throughout.
What may have allowed me to admire Melancholia’s more interesting aspects is that Von Trier has, for the most part, stopped his standard (infuriating) controversy nonsense. With his previous film, the despicable Antichrist (see my rather scathing review from the EIFF 2009), he seemed to spend the entire movie poking and prodding at the audience, trying everything he could at every turn to push people’s buttons. It’s a cinematic endeavour I find completely pointless and insufferable, and it’s the reason I usually can’t stand Von Trier and his films. But with Melancholia he has almost entirely forgotten his MO and takes the subject matter, and his audience, seriously. In that way Melancholia is the director's most accesible work to date.
Article comments
1 - babamaal
What a pointless review. Don't waste your life. Next time, see a movie that you feel you have something to say about.
2 - Zan
If what the critics are showing in their reviews, it seems like Von Trier has been somewhat distracted in his attempts to force his strange views and ideas down the audiences throats and at least making an attempt at letting the film evolve and grow on its own.Will be seeing this very soon (busy, busy).Once again Ross thanks for taking the time to give us your insight into this controversial directors work.
3 - Dansker
Actually most reviews seem to have been fairly positive, but then on the whole they've attempted to decode and interpret the images and style, rather than just throw their hands in the air and give up. If Mr Miller had tried to do the same, then this piece would have come closer to perhaps being an actual review. Having opinions, even biases, is one thing; filtering everything about new things through your existing hatred of old things is best left to the Daily Mail.
4 - Ross Miller
Guys, I didn't write this review in the same way and with the same aim as I usually do. I thought why be coy about my feelings towards Von Trier? Tried to be up front and honest about my feelings towards him and his movie. It wasn't my aim to decode and interpret the images, just wanted to give my raw honest feelings about it.
5 - Ross Miller
@Mishell,
Thanks for the link, nice review. I agree on the visual beauty of the film and how its meticulously crafted, it didn't resonate with me however. Though it's good we can all look at the same film and see different things, like and dislike the exact same piece - the most beautiful thing about film.
6 - Dansker
Mr Miller, I was going to say that that's fair enough - although if you call a piece a review rather than a essay or a rant then you might also have some obligation towards a reader looking for a bigger picture than just your personal reaction. Being able to combine the objective and the subjective is what separates the men from the boys.
But then I realized that you called me a troll on twitter, which since your piece is almost entirely a bunch of ad hominem insults and characterizations of Lars von Trier based on no supporting evidence, suggests that you don't understand what trolling means either. So I'll just wish you good luck with the new Roman Polanski.
7 - Ross Miller
@Dansker,
I don't usually let bias towards a filmmaker creep into my reviews but as I said, I wanted to give my raw and honest reaction to it and what I think of Von Trier in general. If that didn't come across I apologise.
Also, I meant no offence to you or anyone else with the Tweet(s).It might have come across wrong in plain text. If you don't like my review fair enough. I appreciate you taking the time out to read it and comment anyway.
Again no offense intended.
8 - Stevan
Dear 13 year old, Von Trier is obviously too hard for your aesthetic sense and thinking. Change ocupation, travel to planet Melancholia and...
9 - Zan
I kinda get from a lot of comments on here about Ross's review that most people really don't have a lot to say about the film themselves (if they did they would have written a review themselves !!)and would rather pick away at an established writer's written word. Maybe it's the Von Trier Fan Club or something.Can please many people but there is always a few who are never pleased.
As for Stevan's post( NOTE :comment policy).