2 Time Film Excess Nominee:
Best Actress: Kirsten Dunst (lost to Bérénice Bejo for The Artist)
Best Cinematography: Manuel Alberto Claro (lost to Phedon Papamichael for The Descendants)
+ Best Apocalyptic Movie of the Year
 |
| Kirsten Dunst in what might be 2011's most beautiful poster, for Lars Von Trier's Melancholia |
QUICK REVIEW:
An awkward wedding in a large country estate SPOILER ends tragically, as the groom leaves his mentally unbalanced bride, Justine. She remains in a state of deep depression, while guilt and hate bounces off the walls, and a distant planet moves towards Earth.
Danish master filmmaker Lars Von Trier's (Breaking the Waves (1996)) melodrama disaster movie, possibly a little bit better than his preceding Antichrist (2009), is a pictorially generous experience, shot in Trollhättan, Sweden. - Particularly the ultra-slow shots in the beginning of the film are poignant. Striking cinematography by Chilean Manuel Alberto Claro (Reconstruction (2003)).
The film is well-acted, with a strong Kirsten Dunst (On the Road (2012)) leading the ensemble, intense and affecting.
The film's style mix of the meticulously designed and the randomly untidy, and the hopeless characters that don't inspire much real sympathy, who populate Von Trier's script, make the film a somewhat stiff and whimsical work in his oevre, however, although there are some others who actualy think this is his best film to date. I strongly disagree.
Related reviews:
Lars Von Trier: Nymphomaniac (2013) short version, vol. 1 & vol. 2, or, Lars Von Trier's Suck It
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
Antichrist (2009) - Trier's cabin-in-the-woods psycho-horror
Dear Wendy (2005) - Vinterberg and Von Trier's unpopular, gun-themed megaflop (writer)
Dancer in the Dark (2000) or, Selma the Immigrant
 |
| A wonderful Melancholia production still of Lars Von Trier surrounded by cinematographer Claro and stars Kiefer Sutherland, Kirsten Dunst, Alexander Skarsgård and Charlotte Gainsbourg |
Watch the trailer for Melancholia here
Cost: 9.4 mil. $
Box office: 15.9 mil. $
= Big flop
[Melancholia debuted at Cannes, where Dunst won the Best Actress award, and Von Trier was excommunicated as 'persona non grata', because he stirred up the festival by talking about Hitler at the Melancholia press conference. The case later led to a police questioning of him in Denmark and two years of self-enforced public silence from Von Trier, who was very shocked and affected by the whole, stupid affair. Melancholia went on to win Best Film, Cinematographer and Designer at the European Film Awards as well as Best Film - International, Best Director - International, Best Screenplay - International and Best Actress - International from the US National Society of Film Critics, as well as other awards. Melancholia made 3 mil. $ (19 % of the total gross) in the US, and in Denmark, 60,156 paid admission.]
What do you think of Melancholia?
No comments:
Post a Comment