Melancholia

I saw Melancholia last night at Keystone and can't get some of the images out of my head. This is the latest from Lars von Trier of Breaking the Waves fame.

The film opens with very luminous images of what may be scenes from Justine's dreams. She's being dragged back by long sinuous vines in her wedding gown. She's slogging though a bog carrying a child. After about 10 minutes of dream imagery, we see Justine in a rather large stretch lim0 with her new husband on the way to the her sister Claire's rather large country estate house for the wedding reception and she is so happy! The limo is so large that the driver has trouble navigating the narrow twisting road to the country estate. An attack aimed at the wealthy? Things quickly devolve as Justine's clearly mad and clearly self-absorbed family display their true colors at the extremely expensive reception. Justine can't quit catching the star Antares out of the corner of her eye. The star disappears and the reason for the disappearance - the telluric rogue planet Melancholia, long hidden by the sun, has eclipsed it. Ahh...will it crash into the earth or pass by...that is the question.

I love the look of a movie shot mostly with hand held cameras; it's a much more pleasing style to me. I could not take my eyes off of Charlotte Gainsbourg. She reminds me of a young Patti Smith in some ways. I couldn't stop looking at her character in the Science of Sleep either.

My only complaints - I wanted to see much of Udo Kier as the wedding planner. Oh my goodness, what a delightful character! I wanted to see less of Justine in the wedding dress.

The nude scene of Justine by the river:



Reminded me of Javier Pinion's work: