Melancholia (2011)

Today we are taking a look at a movie that I'm sure would never make it onto your school's mental health wellness study week. Oh who am I kidding? Your school doesn't do that shit anyway and lets mental health fall to the wayside in favor of more standardized testing, so I guess it's moot. 

Director: Lars von Trier

Starring: Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg

IMDb

Co-written with Michelle.

Melancholia is one of the more recent films by Lars von Trier, who is famous for making provocative, artistic films. Now, given the fact that this is a very abstract, strange movie, I don't think it would be right to review this in the same way I would review Species 2 or something. In fact I debated whether to review this at all...but then I went nah, it's cool, I can do this. I did preparations Rocky-style by running up and down a flight of stairs this afternoon.

If you don't know, this is the movie starring Kirsten Dunst about a bride going through depression and also the world is ending. I listed those two plot points in that order because I understand priorities!

We start off with a slow-moving apocalypse scene with the world going to hell and a woman played by Kirsten Dunst and her family running around on a golf course with horses. It's very interesting and evocative imagery, only the problem is that von Trier played it so slow that I thought my computer was lagging – which kind of lessened the effect when I had to check my Internet speed instead of getting sucked into the atmosphere. I mean, that shit does happen all the time on Netflix when you're like me and have a computer you bought for $300 at Office Max.

The aftermath to Evil Dead?

But never fear, for then we get a scene of Dunst at her wedding day with her husband Michael. They're trying to do a three-point turn in a limousine and get to, you know, the wedding party itself. The driver can't hack it, so Michael gets in the seat and tries. Then he can't do it, so Dunst has to try. At what point do you just give up and rent a Subaru instead? So far this is probably the worst wedding I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot.

I sure hope they didn't pay that driver too much for having to get him out of the limo and do it themselves...

They finally get to her sister's humongous mansion, complete with a giant-ass golf course that nobody seems to use, and Dunst pauses the whole thing to go say hello to her real lover... 

Ohhhhhh yeah.

Inside at the party, we see that things aren't quite as idyllic as they appeared – including a whole table of women named Betty and a mother played by Charlotte Rampling that constantly stresses how much she doesn't like weddings, and for some reason came anyway. Also, the sister played by Charlotte Gainesbourge constantly has a scowl on her face at the wedding and constantly says she hates Dunst's character Justine over and over. The whole mood is very uncomfortable and goes on for a long time. So, like a real wedding, then. 

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll have 17,000 more glasses of wine. Clearly I haven't had enough yet."

The best wedding gift is soul-crushing depression to the point where you can't get out of bed.

The problem is just that we don't really get much of a story here. Yeah, the mood is tangible, and very well done for a little while, but it drags on for over an hour and there isn't much to really latch onto after a while. We get scraps of this story about how depressed Justine is and how she's had problems in the past, and you think, oh, it'll be revealed more later. Only it isn't. It's like a date with a person who speaks a different language, and you think, oh, we'll connect more when we spend more time together. It can't be that hard. But then you just end up at home alone anyway and more confused.

And don't get me wrong here – I'm not one of those assholes who just thinks all film has to be straightforward and anything that isn't an explosion-filled action fest just sucks by default. No, I didn't go into this expecting a Michael Bay action fest – thank you IMDb commenters. In fact that whole argument is just kinda bullshit to begin with; just because someone doesn't like something doesn't mean they were expecting some ridiculous polar opposite that you made up just to be condescending. Same shit in the other direction, too - “oh, you didn't like Transformers 5: Return of the Giant Phallic CGI Effects? YOU MUST HAVE JUST BEEN EXPECTING KING LEAR!!!”

No.

Even so though, Melancholia just tends to drag on too long without enough real character or drama, so much as just the ghostly suggestions of those things. Instead of actual conflict, we get the implication of it, sort of tantalizingly waved in front of the audience's face like a slab of wet meat in front of a salivating dog. The atmosphere is still there, but where I wanted to hear some good, soul-searching dialogue that explored what was going on between them, I just got this: 

CLAIRE: It's not about the cost. It's just, I thought you really wanted this.

JUSTINE: But I do.

CLAIRE: Michael has tried to get through to you all evening, with no avail.

JUSTINE: That's not true. I smile, and I smile, and I smile.

CLAIRE: You lied to all of us.

Then Claire leaves, that's basically the end of that, and Justine goes and talks to Charlotte Rampling, because I really needed more scenes of Rampling telling her not to get married and that nobody wants to be here, so it's good the movie's got my back. I can see what von Trier wanted to do with these scenes, showing the futility of it all, but again - it's just bits and scraps of a real story; you don't actually get very much.

Oh, except for close-ups so invasive that you could pick the eye-boogers out of every character's head.

This whole wedding thing goes on for way too long, and culminates in Justine leaving her husband in the middle of wedding night sex and instead fucking some idiot who works with her on the golf course sand pit. 

"Hmmm...something isn't right here..."

"Ah, yes, this is better."

Oh, and then like a few scenes later, she calls out her boss and quits her job, despite having been given a promotion earlier in the wedding. Awesome. That's just amazing to me. Most of these wedding scenes seem to always come back to one central point – no one likes each other, no one wants to be at the wedding and yet they came anyway.

It's just that so much of this relies on interpretation – you're supposed to glean your own meaning of what this exactly is trying to say. So many of these types of movies just end up bullshitty when you get down to it. Yeah, there is some genuine artistic inspiration behind it, that much is clear, but it just doesn't make it a good movie alone. If I have to interpret things to the degree that I'm just filling in the crater-sized gaps in the movie's plot with my own imagination, I might as well just go make my own movie instead.

Oh, sure, von Trier was definitely trying to make a movie about depression, and the film has certain very interesting glimpses at what that feels like – there's one scene later on where Justine is staying at her sister's mansion and comes down to try and eat something, taking one bite and bursting into tears, exclaiming “It tastes like ashes!” It's honestly a good scene and is very evocative as to what it feels like to be depressed. 

That's just one scene though, and the whole movie is filled up with tons more vast stretches of silence and other vague scenes that sort of, kind of hint at the story, but the story you're waiting for never really comes to fruition. I don't want this to be too much more straightforward than it is – I like the weirdness and vagueness of a lot of the imagery and scenes here, but I'm a literature guy at heart; I want to see more of a glimpse into their characters and motivations and desires. Here, all I end up getting is more scenes of people scowling at one another, and none of the characters really get fully fleshed out.

Oh, but we do get Kirsten Dunst beating up a horse. Can't forget that! 

I never saw a "no horses were filmed in the making of this movie" disclaimer!

This whole movie is kind of like going on a road trip to somewhere and seeing vast, beautiful sights and scenery – and then ending up turning around and going home without doing anything or learning anything. I mean, look at some of the rest of these scenes in the last part of the movie. I'm tempted to think, with how glacial the pacing is, the actors could all just die on set and von Trier would never notice. 

"Sir, I think they've stopped breathing!"
"Keep filming! We need to get this right!"

The ending has some good scenes of Justine monologuing about the world ending, and also another one where they hide in a tent made of sticks against the fiery comet-death of the Universe. 

I guess soul-crushing hopelessness is one way to deal with it, and child's cowboys and Indians games are another. It would admittedly be funny if it worked, though, and the smoke cleared and they were fine underneath those sticks – which really are the only defense against fiery comets bigger than the Earth hurtling towards the whimpering, cowering planet, when you think about it. 

They could still be OK.

Too much of this whole movie is just what you bring to the table from your own subjective life experience – so much so that there's really nothing there in the movie by itself. Some people will probably watch this and see a very evocative, beautiful and haunting portrait of depression and how depressed people see the world. Others, like my friend who helps me do these reviews, will absolutely hate this and find it pointless and dull beyond belief. Personally I thought it was weak with little character development and even less of a real story.

Movies as a whole are like that. Melancholia is an extreme example, and really takes the “subjective experience” thing to a whole new level, being almost entirely reliant on it for the viewer to get something out of it at all, or else they'll just hate it. But the answer, no matter where you stand, is never just strawmanning it up and painting the opposite opinion as somehow hysterically wrong. Going either “you just want every movie to be a big dumb action movie if you hate this” or “you clearly only like butt-sniffingly pretentious arthouse crap and are obsessed with your own intelligence if you like this” is just too far. How about just not being a jackass about it?

I'd also like to take the time to point out that this movie was actually a prequel to a timeless classic released about 25 years before. The events that come after that comet hits the Earth are truly terrifying...

Indeed.

Images copyright of their original owners; I own none of them.

REVIEW: 11-11-11: The Prophecy (2011)

Back in January, I reviewed a steaming, festering disaster of a movie called 11/11/11, made by The Asylum. It was a complete and total waste of my time. The Asylum’s penchant for making terrible ripoffs of Hollywood blockbusters just infuriated me back then. So, I figured, why not take a look at the original film, the one that inspired this to begin with…and I use the term ‘inspired’ loosely.

Director: Darren Lynn-Bousman

Starring: Timothy Gibbs, Michael Landes, Wendy Glenn

IMDb

Yes, from the visionary brain of the second, third and fourth SAW movies, Darren Lynn Bousman, comes this little gem, 11-11-11: The Prophecy…and I do mean little, as this thing is only 82 minutes, and it shows. I mean, this thing has got to be the worst example of super-obvious cutting of a movie down to size I’ve ever seen. I bet the director’s cut is like a totally different movie. But then again, why would I want to see any more of this shit than I did tonight? I think 82 minutes was about 82 minutes too much for this. But it’s one thing to talk about it and quite another to actually witness it, so let’s just do that, shall we?

The movie begins with our main character Joseph Crone, a writer whose family was killed in a home invasion, and so now he sees choppy, annoying visions of fire and angel statues everywhere…get used to it; it’s all throughout the movie.

"AH! Man, I really hope I don't have any more flashbacks to The Omen sequels in my dreams...that would be terrible..."

Mostly this character is just crap. He constantly whines and complains all the time and a lot of the film’s runtime is his super-serious deep diary recollections, which is cool because all I ever want out of a thriller movie is the pretentious “dark” narrations of an obvious self-centered asshole like this character is. Oh, please, more of that! By the way, the editing in this movie is just atrocious, being compiled mostly of quick jump cuts that serve no purpose but to ham-fistedly show the passage of time…instead it’s just like the editing room had a collective seizure.

He goes to some grief counseling group where a woman is speaking about getting through loss. She approaches him afterwards and gives him a notebook, and then he gets into a car crash. He somehow survives this and goes on to mope some more about that – yes, he even bitches about not dying, because this character is so tortured and pained that only death could cure it! He gets a voicemail at home almost immediately after telling him that his father is going to die in a few days. Man, this guy just doesn’t get much luck. What’s next, is he going to get cancer? Is he going to get blackmailed by a Russian mafia boss into working as a male sex slave? Don't stop short of TRUE HUMAN SUFFERING, movie!

The irony of a character who wants to die not being able to, however, is funny enough to almost make up for it.

So it turns out his family home is in Barcelona, Spain, even though his brother and father are as white as can be and none of them is really shown speaking Spanish much in the film. That makes no sense, and was clearly just put in there to give Bousman an excuse to shoot in Spain. It doesn’t matter where this story takes place and setting it in Spain just doesn’t make any logical sense given the situation the characters are in. They lived in the US but then moved to Spain when Joseph was a kid, only for Joseph to grow up and leave Spain and come to England as an adult? Tell me how that couldn’t have been simpler. I know it’s a petty thing to bitch about, but…it’s just so silly!

It turns out Joseph has a brother, Samuel, who is in a wheelchair. So not only did he lose his wife and child to a crazy murderer, get into a car accident and now his father is dying, BUT ALSO he has a brother in a wheelchair? Jesus! You know, there IS a limit to how much suffering is realistic, you know! This just comes off like they were trying to cram in as many horrible things to do to these people as possible. It’s totally hackneyed, and feels incredibly half-assed.

The father is lying in bed about to die, but that doesn’t stop him from sitting up and doing a silly scene where he speaks in a goofy voice about how everyone is watching - my god, the movie's become self aware! Run for your lives!

That face...ha ha ha...that's gotta be the only funny thing in this whole damn movie.

There’s also a nurse lady named Ana whose only job seems to be making shitty jump scares. If you think that’s scary, though, just wait until you see Samuel’s church service, in which people can apparently just show up randomly with guns and try to attack the pastors…eh, no big deal.

Aw, poor guy...he just is extremely sensitive...

No, really, apparently it’s no big deal. That’s what Samuel says. “Oh, he’s been under a lot of stress lately,” is his rationale for being OK with a member of his congregation pulling a gun on him. DUDE. HE PULLED A GUN ON YOU. WAKE UP. What’s going to happen next time? “Oh, he stabbed me seven times and then raped and murdered my girlfriend? He’s just going through a hard time. Don’t fret it.”

Joseph spends a large amount of time in the next few scenes just bashing Christianity and bitching about how his childhood sucked. Because his wife and kid got murdered, he has lost his faith in God – that’s understandable. But what isn’t understandable is the sheer jackassery he displays by constantly acting like a dick to the people who care about him. This guy is just a douchebag! If you think your own pain and grief is an excuse to be rude and insensitive to everyone else, you lose the right to grieve, asshole. Go sit in the corner.

After that is over, we see another trademark of this movie: fast, jerky-camera action scenes with tons of quick cuts and screaming. Because if you don’t have that, your movie just can’t be scary at all. Who cares about atmosphere or tension build up? Just have Rob Zombie-esque puke-worthy camera cuts and lots of screaming to nauseate the viewers further. That’s the true way of horror.

Supernatural visions that don't really mean anything? Yup it's a crappy modern horror flick.

If that isn’t enough, Joseph then starts to notice a pattern that everything bad happens to him involves the number 11:11 – when his wife and kid died, when his brother got attacked, and the time displayed on a crazy looking video that is probably the next Paranormal Activity movie:

I will also accept 'Blair Witch 3: The Stupidity of Idiots Who Think Random Fog Means Something.' Well, OK, I guess that title could use some trimming down.

The real cincher – the real gem – here is the following scene, which consists of Joseph saying that he now believes that celestial beings from beyond are controlling everything through the numbers 11:11:11. Yes. The same man who has been ALL MOVIE denouncing Christianity is now believing in this crazy shit. “Your belief in God is silly, BUT I BELIEVE IN MYSTICAL BEINGS AND NUMBERS REAPPEARING!” I…I just can’t even follow this now. It makes no sense. It has no logic. There is NO REASON WHATSOEVER that this should have progressed beyond the drawing board.

So Joseph goes over to that one crazy guy’s house, the one who pulled a gun on Samuel at the service. His wife says he’s troubled and has been reading about dark magic and stuff. Uh, movie, I’m not sure you’re really focusing on the right thing here. This man pulls guns on innocent people. He should be locked up until he is of sounder mind. That’s all there is to it! Joseph gets a hold of the guy’s camera which apparently has some crazy stuff on it, and has to go develop it. At the camera shop, it really makes sense that he can’t speak Spanish to the employees and instead impatiently shouts at them in slow enunciated English like they're retards, because it’s not like he grew up there or anything…oh wait, he did…

Then he gets a call from that British stalker chick, who flies all the way to Sweden to meet him even though they don’t really know a thing about each other. Life is just dandy! I love the first scene she’s in with Samuel. Joseph comes in in the morning and finds them sitting together at the table. Samuel says she just popped in and he was telling her about the break in the other night. Yeah, really – hey, random stranger, come in and let me tell you about the break-in we had the other not. God, this movie is shit. It’s not even any big problems really – it’s a bunch of little, silly things like this that build up and fester over time.

There’s a scene where the father gives Joseph some hokey ‘mystical’ speech about how he has to protect his brother, which apparently is more than enough to get him to renounce his atheism (and…weird voodoo crap he believed in with the 11/11/11 thing) and convert to Christianity! I guess he really was just blowing hot smoke this whole time…heh heh…the father then dies and the first thing Joseph does is take the British chick out to walk in a maze! There they encounter the crazy guy again and he points a gun at them some more…it’s OK, he’s just going through a hard time.

"My father just died! Let's go walk around town and have some alone time together instead of staying at the house, comforting my crippled brother and waiting for the ambulance to arrive."

Joseph goes back to the crazy gun-wielding guy’s house again and breaks in, looking for more evidence, until the movie goes all David Lynch again and starts giving us psychedelic camera angles as Joseph gets shot. Finally. Can he please just die now? No, because that would destroy the movie’s outlet for piss-poor whining and faux-dark speeches about inner pain…he is fine apparently.

Was this guy's entire job description 'hold a gun at the main character'? Seriously. It's getting old.

Good to know that when you get shot, you don't die but rather just see visions of your dead family members standing in front of the DVD cover to the movie.

Then Joseph goes to get the photos and we don’t get to see what they are, but that’s cool because back at home, the demons are attacking. There’s a lot of running around in the dark, screaming, odd camera angles where you can’t see the action, and screaming. It’s mostly a big unwatchable mess and there’s nothing to be gained from it. Our final climax is when Joseph saves Samuel from being stabbed by the demonic creatures, and ends up finally dying…that’s right, a car crash couldn’t kill him and getting shot couldn’t kill him – it was like he was so wretched a character that even the Grim Reaper was like “dude, no!” – but getting stabbed once kills him. Make sense? No? Good!

Oh, I forgot to mention that these demonic creatures are a) never explained and b) looking a lot like Pinhead's retarded cousins who he sits far away from at family dinners.

Then we get the aftermath, in which the brother Samuel turns out to be evil along with everyone else in the film…they start a new religion based around Joseph dying. You know, it’s not exactly a BAD twist or anything but we all knew SOMEONE was evil anyway, and there wasn’t really a whole lot of options. And what exactly are we supposed to take away from this? One unlikable asshole dies, so a freaky cult starts a new religion. So what? Are they going to destroy the world or something? Infiltrate the highest forms of government in the country? Or maybe they’ll just have tea and crumpets. Either option is equally likely.

This is a terrible, stupid movie and I can’t see how anyone would enjoy it. There’s just nothing good about it, from the piece of shit main character to the vapid storyline and rushed, haphazard editing style. 11-11-11 is so bad that I think there ought to be an end-of-world prophecy made around THIS shitty movie. “And on the 11^th hour of the 11^th day of the 11^th month, a godawful movie will arise, and it will be spawned from the creative black hole that made the SAW sequels…and the heavens wept in fear.”

Yeah, that sounds about right.

Images are copyright of their original owners and I do not own any of them.

REVIEW: Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (2012)

Despite a cumbersome title, this dramedy starring Steve Carell and Keira Knightley is a pretty subtle, quiet and sometimes beautiful little movie. I didn’t even know about this thing until I saw the trailer for it before Prometheus, just two weeks before it came out. But I actually ended up liking this one better than the aforementioned sci-fi blockbuster…go figure.

Director: Lorene Scafaria

Starring: Steve Carell, Keira Knightley

Website: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1307068/

This movie is an end of the world flick that doesn’t focus too much on the scientific reasons for the world’s end or even the bigger picture – it just focuses on the life of one guy (Carell) and those around him. And surprisingly, it works really well. I always like movies that do this, because it just gives a much more humanistic, natural spin on the usual kinds of stories these topics generate. The human element is the most interesting part of any movie, especially something as monumental and alien as the end of the world. I want to see the individual, common man’s dilemma in the face of Armageddon. And this movie delivers.

Seeking a Friend works because of its blend of comedy and drama. The first twenty minutes or so has some pretty standard Steve Carell styled comedy, where he’s all awkward and whatnot, but that doesn’t last long and isn’t played up to any kind of exaggerated levels. And even during those parts, there is a subtly somber sadness that enhances the comedy, playing off the fact that it’s the end of the world. The movie never quite shoves that fact in your face, but it is always there beneath the surface, the catalyst for the more personal relationship forged in the movie’s runtime. Carell actually does a good job here and conveys the sober, serious tone very well while also allowing the funny parts to shine through. The balance is well done.

Knightley gives a good performance too, as the very British and quirky female neighbor who Carell befriends in the midst of the chaotic happenings all around him. They grow close and share some very tender and also some very funny moments on screen, as is typical of these kinds of movies, but it’s all handled with delicacy and delivered with sincerity, so I like it. The seedy, desolate country atmosphere of a lot of the latter half of the film really serves to drive home how alone people really are with the impending end of the world – everyone, at the end of his or her days, is alone, and with the collective end approaching, who is left?

As such, it becomes a very poignant picture, and the effect of the movie will linger on you long after you walk out of the theater. And I think that makes it a good movie, so go see it if it has piqued your interest at all.

The image is copyright of its original owner.