Tag Archives: melancholia

Top Five Films Of 2011

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Well okay, maybe that title is somewhat inaccurate. These are my top five films of the year; the ones that moved me, thrilled me, chilled me and left me bowled over by the endless power of the movies. Obviously I didn’t get a chance to see everything that came out though I like to think I gave as much effort as I could to see stuff from across the spectrum of releases. I don’t expect everyone to agree with my choices; one of them I know has incensed arguably more people than it has awed. But like I say it is my humble opinion. Agree or disagree to your content…

1) THE TREE OF LIFE

Terrance Malick’s fifth and most ambitious feature to date, feels like something that we may never see again; a $30 million mainstream film that unashamedly confronts the meaning of life, the cruelty of death, the absence of faith and belief in the divine. Audiences today are so used to having narrative drip thread to them that the astonishingly loose and flowing construction of The Tree Of Life led to outright hostility from many critics and audience members. Despite my initial bewilderment at it through, it stayed with me through the months and on repeat viewings has grown into a profound and deeply moving work. Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain are extraordinary as a married couple bestowing their differing views on life to their children. What follows is overwhelming vision of the minutia of family life compared with nothing less than the birth of life itself. For me The Tree Of Life does what cinema should do; it takes the most intimate, recognisable aspects we understand and contrasts them against something unfeasibly epic, powerful and ultimately incredibly moving.

2) DRIVE

Roaring out of Cannes like the greatest Michael Mann film that Michael Mann never made, Nicolas Winding Refn’s sleek, blood splattered romantic fairytale captured the hearts of minds of critic and audiences alike. Ryan Gosling truly cements his star status with a near mute role as a stunt driver by day and getaway driver by night who goes up against the LA underworld (personified by a spectacular and unexpected villainous turn by Albert Brooks) when he falls for troubled Carey Mulligan. The two worlds of the story smack head into each other in a spectacular climactic scene in an elevator. The scenes of extreme violence could have been too alienating yet Refn directs with such flair and panache that nearly every scene makes you hairs stand on end. Throw in the best soundtrack of the year hands down and you have an instant cult classic. I walked out of it like i was walking on air.

3) MELANCHOLIA

It could have been overshadowed by director Lars Von Trier’s poor taste in humour at this year’s Cannes Film Festival but thankfully his intimate apocalyptic drama is strong enough to stand on its own feet as an astonishing singular vision of brilliance. Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg are terrific as two frigid sisters both thrown together by a disastrous wedding and then the arrival of a rogue planet on a collision course with Earth. Filmed in a woozy, dream like palette with very deliberate framing and hauntingly beautiful compositions it takes the difficult subject of depression and manages extraordinarily to turn into a transcendent and oddly uplifting experience.

4) WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN

Arguably the boldest novel adaptation of the year, British director Lynne Ramsey makes a stunning return to screens with a disorientating and devastating tale of a women living in the shadow of her monstrous son and terrible crime he has committed. Tilda Swinton is reliably brilliant conveying both the mother’s dawning horror at steadily disturbing events and the guilt that she feels for not showing the love she should have for the child. It’s a role that most actresses would have balked at yet Swinton plays it with such mesmerising confidence. As good as she is though the film arguably belongs to Ezra Miller as the teenage Kevin who beneath a seemingly innocent, sweet veneer chills to the very bone. Hopefully we won’t have to wait so long for Ramsey to release her next work.

5) CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS

Having dragged a steamer over a mountain, travelled to the furthest reaches of the Amazon and Antarctica acclaimed German filmmaker Werner Herzog goes into the depths of the Chauvet Cave in southern France to document not only it’s astounding geographical presence but also the oldest cave paintings known to man, perhaps they are the beginning of art itself. Shown in 3D at cinemas, I caught up with the film in 2D and was still floored by the beauty and skill with which Herzog examines these paintings as well as the brilliantly dry wit in his unmistakeable Bavarian drawl as he spends time with the familial team of scientists living in the shadow of the caves and simple yet deeply profound musings on the passing of time and the origins of these extraordinary drawings. When it comes to the vision of nature itself, Herzog is rarely topped.

MELANCHOLIA {Film Review}

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MELANCHOLIA

Trust the tale and the not the teller goes the old saying,and with good purpose too. While it may be easy to dismiss Melancholia in light of Danish enfant terrible director Lars Von Trier’s bafflingly out of taste ‘joke’ at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, those who do, would be doing a disservice to one of the most striking and elegant films of the year. A haunting and strange sci-fi tale of sisters emotionally disintegrating, bitter family ties, depression, and the end of the world as we know it; it’s an engrossing and beautiful work that stands as perhaps one of Von Trier’s best. The plot seems simple from afar; Justine (Kirsten Dunst), a young and successful career woman, has just been married to an incredibly sweet and handsome young man named Michael (Alexander Skarsgard). Their reception is hosted at a remote castle being paid for by her sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and her husband John (Kiefer Sutherland) where various members of her family and work colleagues mingle together. Though she seems to have everything one could want, Justine rapidly sinks into a deep depression and grows distant from her new husband and sister. Matters are not helped as her separated mother and father (Charlotte Rampling and John Hurt) tear open old wounds at the reception dinner and humiliate both their daughters. There’s also Justine’s astonishingly cruel and greedy employer (Stellan Skarsgard) who seems intent on committing her for a sales pitch before she’s even cut her wedding cake. Can this agonizingly uncomfortable social setting be the reason for Justine’s intense depression? Or could it be the mysterious rogue planet Melancholia which is passing close by to Earth and may just collide with it?

From the beginning Von Trier makes no allusion as to the outcome of the story as he opens with an astonishingly stylised prologue of Melancholia colliding into the Earth, interspersed with surreal imagery of the main characters and a Wagner score playing at deafening levels. Playing out in graceful slow motion, the images in this sequence resemble hauntingly beautiful classical artwork and seem a rapid departure from Von Trier’s usual style. He quickly reverts to this in the two distinct narrative acts of the film. Part one follows Justine as she arrives late at the wedding and bears witness to the social car crash that occurs. Von Trier made his mark in the mid nineties with the Dogma 95 movement, where he and several fellow filmmakers decided to shoot with nothing but what was provided within the environment of the shooting. No formalism and no gloss. Here he seems to bend his rules to a degree, employing a roving hand held camera that snatches out at specific incidents of lines of dialogue yet manipulates the appearance of the frame with beautiful downcast lighting that drenches the proceedings with an ominous dread that harks back to the opening scene. It marks a meeting of styles that Von Trier has been calling to in recent years the most notable examples including Dancer In The Dark and Antichrist, where he combines his realistic aesthetic with a tremendously stylised and fabricated one. Some may accuse him of betraying his former principles yet there is an astonishing visual rush of the first act that reveals Von Trier’s talent at visual style and composition.

The second act is far more intimate character piece, focusing on Claire as she cares for a near catatonic Justine and frets over Melancholia’s passing by. It’s in this section that we are reminded of Von Trier’s incredible direction of actresses. The male contingent gets its shout from Kiefer Sutherland who plays the foolish rationality of Claire’s husband well; if anything it’s disconcerting to see him so subtle after eight years of beating people senseless in 24. Yet it truly is Dunst and Gainsborg’s film to steer and they do so brilliantly. Dunst in particular shines in a way that she has not yet had to do in her career, outside of her work with Sofia Coppola. She imbues Justine with a fragile grace that barely conceals the chasms of despair that inexplicably overcome her. Her transition from emotional cripple to enigmatic foreseer of doom is loosely defined yet utterly compelling. Gainsbourg handles the reverse side of Claire excellently as well, the grim irony of the inevitable outcome reflected in her luminous screen quality. She personally reminds me of the likes of Liv Ullman, an actress whose facial expressions seem destined for the big screen.

Von Trier claims to have made the film in the midst of his own crippling depression and the process of bringing it to the screen was a catharsis for him. However much of this is true, is rife for debate. What we have is the work itself; an intoxicating, intricate and incredibly ambitious attempt to contrast the intimate with the epic. Von Trier’s detractors will almost certainly find his directorial vision too singular and his depictions of women distasteful, but rather than mere attention grabbing he has crafted an overwhelmingly powerful cinematic piece that stands as one of his finest to date. A depressive apocalypse drama that leaves you ecstatic? It’s a keeper.