Meet the free, proud, independent people of Ukraine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzNxLzFfR5w Nothing but reviews. In excess.
From ZERO to 6 ♥s. 100% ad-free. Run on pure love for movies, documentaries and TV-series. June 2025: Countdown to: Top 10: Best horror comedy movies - Upcoming review: There's Still Tomorrow (2023)
Eagerly anticipating this month ... (6-25)
Joachim Trier's Sentimental Value (2025)
Showing posts with label Charlotte Gainsbourg. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Charlotte Gainsbourg. Show all posts
Four period-dressed characters seem to be standing waist-deep in a milky substance on this very odd poster for Emanuele Crialese's Golden Door
A rocky province in Italy at the turn of the 20t century: A family decides to migrate 'across the pond'. A mystical woman named Lucy joins them on the ship.
Golden Door is written and directed by Italian master filmmaker Emanuele Crialese (Once We Were Strangers (1997)).
It is a breathtaking film in unmistakably Italian style. With complete authority Crialese stages long scenes and dream scenes that open up the inner life of the characters. There is spartan but affecting music (score by Antonio Castrignanò), first class sound work and editing, and faces that shine with character and beauty. The authenticity feels unassailable, and the performances are formidable: Vincenzo Amato (The Habit of Beauty (2013)) as the father, Charlotte Gainsbourg (I'm Not There (2007)) as the mysterious Lucy, and the mute son and the late mother are also acted impeccably.
Golden Door shows us very concretely, how the concepts 'the old world' and 'the new world' were absolutely real concepts for many of the immigrants involved in the great migration from Europe to North America. The exceptional acting crowns an incredibly cinematic, affecting, funny, wise and grand film that also is relevant in connection to what immigration for a better life has become today.
[Golden Door premiered 8 September (Venice Film Festival) and runs 120 minutes. 18 companies and support bodies were involved in the financing and making of the film. Shooting took place in Italy, including in Rome, and in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Vincent Schiavelli's part was reduced drastically, as the actor passed away during filming. The film opened #51 to a 27k $ first weekend in 2 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #26 and in 33 theaters (different weeks), grossing 1 mil. $ (13.9 % of the total gross). North America was the film's 3rd biggest market: Biggest was Italy with 3.2 mil. $ (44.4 %) and France with 1.4 mil. $ (19.4 %). The film was Italy's Oscar entry of the year but was not nominated. It won 3/13 David di Donatello nominations and was nominated for a European Film award, among other honors. Crialese returned with Terraferma (2011). Gainsbourg returned in I Do/Prête-moi ta Main (2006); Amato in Il Dolce e l'Amaro (2007). Golden Door is fresh at 72 % with a 6.80/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
A deliciously made, evocative, dreamscape-depicting poster for Michel Gondry's The Science of Sleep
Stéphane gets a job at an office that makes calenders, and he falls in love with his neighbor, who refuses his advances and is very troublesome.
The Science of Sleep is written and directed by great French filmmaker Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)), based on a bedtime story written by 10 year-old Sam Mounier. Gael García Bernal (Babel (2006)) acts about as childishly as an actor can here, playing a character with a hard-to-believe, silly job across from Charlotte Gainsbourg (Nuremberg (2000, miniseries)), who is unattractive as the inexplicable object of his enamorment in this highly eccentric, goofy film. The Science of Sleep has a few funny moments and ideas that it wins on for me. But overall it is a fairly taxing experience, because it is just too much, an accumulated feeling of too much overwhelms me when watching it. It awakens my private Franco-phobia, which beats red with much higher alarm at a cutesy whimsical French romance film like Amélie (2001). But The Science of Sleep is similarly unbearable for me. Related posts: Michel Gondry: Be Kind Rewind (2008) - Black and Def gleefully remake videos in Gondry's unsound script
Cost: 6 mil. $ Box office: 15 mil. $ = Box office success (returned 2.5 times its cost) [The Science of Sleep premiered 11 February (Berlin International Film Festival) and runs 106 minutes. Shooting took place in France, including Paris. The film opened #25 to a 347k $ first weekend in 14 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #15 and in 243 theaters (different weeks) and grossed 4.6 mil. $ (30.7 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were France with 3.7 mil. $ (24.7 %) and the UK with 1.2 mil. $ (8 %). The film won a European Film award. Gondry returned with 8 short and video projects before his next theatrical engagement with Be Kind Rewind (2008). Bernal returned in Soy tu Fan (2006, ministeries) and theatrically in Babel (2006); Gainsbourg in Golden Door/Nuovomondo (2006). The Science of Sleep is fresh at 70 % with a 6.62/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.] What do you think of The Science of Sleep?
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.
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?
This is a review of Nymphomaniac: Volume 1 and Nymphomaniac: Volume 2, as they play in Copenhagen these days, in a cut version to suit international markets, as two two-hour films with a ten minute break in between. I saw them in a jam-packed theater last night and had a very intense experience with Danish master director Lars Von Trier's latest magnus opus. If the films should be reviewed individually, - which they seem to welcome themselves, being parted with credits, and released (perhaps) in America as two individual films this spring, - I would rate them as follow: Nymphomaniac: Volume 1♥♥♥♥♥ Nymphomaniac: Volume 2♥♥♥♥
Incredible group photo of most of the stars of Lars Von Trier's Nymphomaniac
Nymphomaniac is about a middle-aged woman, Joe, who is found battered down in an alley by an elderly gentleman, Seligman. He takes her to his apartment, where she begins to tell him her life story, which is the story of a nymphomaniac. For those unaware of the diagnosis, a nymphomaniac is also what is known as a sex addict. Joe has an unhealthy obsession with sex and sexual stimulation in all its forms, and this dictates her life and makes her live a life of seemingly unavoidable disasters. Volume 1 is surprisingly warm and humorous, given Trier's previous films and person. Joe's friendly conversation with Seligman lends the film a charming narrative device, and Stellan Skarsgård (Breaking the Waves (1996)) has one of his best parts ever, and puts wonderful life to his character. We quickly go through Joe's childhood play with her sexuality to her youth as a frivolous searcher and soon fanatical sex enthusiast. The only really dubious acting performance in the film unfortunately comes from Jens Albinus (The Boss of it All (2006)), who gets serviced by the young Joe. And this part is only on the screen for a minute or two. Otherwise, a highlight of Volume 1 is the scene with Uma Thurman (Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 (2003; 2004)), who plays with an electric emotional intensity that wells out into the theater and fascinates. A great, great scene:
Uma Thurman is one of the actors, who deliver incredibly fine work in Nymphomaniac
The only real discomfort I suffered in Volume 1 was during the hospital scenes, in which Joe's father dies. He is played by Christian Slater (He Was A Quiet Man (2007)). As most of the audiences, I left the theater for the break high on the film and excited and a little anxious to see Volume 2.
The second volume leaves out Skarsgård's calming Seligman-figure for most of the runtime. Instead we are introduced to Joe's escalating sex mania, as she becomes a mother and choses her addiction over her family and delves into different fetishes. Her great tragedy is that she has overused her vagina to an extent where it becomes numb and later disfigured. By and by she cannot cover her regular job anymore and gets a new job that relies on her moral plasticity and sexual knowledge. She is introduced to new levels of depravity and tragedy and continues her long journey of addiction and extreme loneliness with no other alternatives in her sight. Needless to say, Volume 2 is discouraging with a vengeance. If some of us saw Volume 1 and thought for a while optimistically that Trier had lightened up, Volume 2 clearly shows that he hasn't, and that he was just fooling us, perhaps so as to tramp us down even further in a muddy, black hole of despair in the film's second half. Volume 1 is fine to show anywhere, in my opinion, for grown-ups mind you, but in Volume 2, lavish amounts of explicit sex and violence made me feel sick in my stomach, and the film still sits like a dark cloud around my head. The ending makes all the difference, and, without spoiling it, I will say that Trier goes to new pessimistic lengths with the ending of Nymphomaniac, which can best be described as utter hopelessness. This deprives the film of great praise from me, since my favorite Trier-film still is the amazing, cathartic masterpiece Breaking the Waves (1996), - perhaps his only film to end on a hopeful note. At the same time, Nymphomaniac is an amazing piece of cinema and totally unique. It is a crazy cornucopia, which could only be made and realized by Trier, and although I had hoped that he would have mellowed and served a less tangy, stomach-turning piece of pie, it still comes from an exquisite pie.
As noted earlier, Nymphomaniac is embellished by several great acting performances: Besides those already saluted, Charlotte Gainsbourg (Antichrist (2009)) is phenomenal as the older Joe. Jean-Marc Barr (Europa (1991)) has a memorable scene. Young model Mia Goth does well in her shocking scenes with Joe. Willem Dafoe (The Boondock Saints (1999)) plays the only really evil character in the film, a near-satanic man, and he is a specialist at such roles and does great. Shia LaBeouf (Eagle Eye (2008)) plays his part as Jerôme, Joe's love, with great sensibility and grace. Young actress Stacy Martin (The Clown, upcoming) is impressive as young Joe, and Jamie Bell (Billy Elliot (2000)) is fierce and believable as a sadist practitioner in some very lengthy, almost unbearable-to-watch scenes, in which Joe (and us as audiences) are slapped, beaten and whipped harshly. It certainly is (upliftingly) difficult to imagine Bell returning as Tintin after this... Nymphomaniac is a sprawling tale filled with digressions, which was part of Trier's design and idea for the film, for it to be more like a great novel than a film. This only partly succeeds: In Volume 1, the digressions are mostly Seligman's, as he informs Joe and us of points on numbers, fish, literature, knots etc., and mostly these digressions are humorous and welcomed by audience interest. In Volume 2, most of the digressions are Joe's, and they are mostly poorly disguised outlets for Trier's own opinions on this and that. Because Trier has not permitted himself to speak in public any more, (since the debacle at Cannes with his previous, apocalyptic Melancholia (2011), in which he said he sympathized with Hitler, and was subsequently kicked out of the festival, and later questioned by Danish police), Trier takes the chance with Nymphomaniac to speak in VOLUMES. About democracy, political correctness, pedophilia, hypocrisy and other issues dear to his heart. Joe is the speaker of these ideas. And most of them are well-founded and reasonable, - especially the thoughts on pedophilia where meaningful to me, - but there are just too much of it, and it doesn't brighten up the already heavy tonnage in Volume 2. It also doesn't levitate that the final scenes are the lengthy conclusion to the conversation between Seligman and Joe, in which they both seem close to falling asleep. Nymphomaniac is packed with a heady mix of pop, rock and classical music; it is technically superior and thematically charged. It makes Steve McQueen's celebrated, good film Shame (2011) look like a meek parenthesis on the subject of sex addiction. Nymphomaniac is the definitive cinematic work on the issue and will probably remain so for decades to come. It is taboo-breaking, depressing, funny, riveting, terrible, crazy and wild to see: Trier still knows how to develop a female lead that comes to totally own the audiences, even if she's mostly bad, and we suffer greatly because of it. The film is set to come out in America in March and April, respectively, and I am curious to see how that will play out, and in how many countries the films will finally land. They are bound to become controversial and could result in downright hysteria and bans. I predict Nymphomaniac will be called racist, blasphemous, dangerous, illegal, incestuous, satanic, misanthropic and other dubious 'distinctions', even if I don't think either of them really fit. But it does walk on a fine line on many of these accounts. How to judge Nymphomaniac? As a morality tale, or rather an immorality tale? As a film about sex? A drama? A literary film? The third film in Trier's trilogy of depression, (which also includes Antichrist (2009) and Melancholia (2011))? I think the most correct and crediting way is to view it as a film about sex addiction, about being a nymphomaniac. Seen in this light, Nymphomaniac is the bleakest of views, showing no feasible way out or solution to the strongly motivated addiction, which only results in continued avalanches of calamities in the film's universe. For this reason, and because Trier has been better before, - often when he has confined himself more and been less indulgent than is the case here, - I cannot totally embrace Nymphomaniac. But I will still recommend it to every one, who is up for it. And I consider it Trier's best film since his hilarious dark comedy The Boss of It All (2006). Related posts:
Budget: 4.7 mil. $ Box office: 10.2 mil. $ so far = Still not possible to say Are you going to see Nymphomaniac? If you already have, then share your thoughts, please
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