Typically I can find the words to describe how I feel regarding a film as the credits are still rolling on the screen. My mind builds up various thoughts throughout and I cannot wait to unleash them as soon as possible, but I had to sleep on Melancholia before typing up this review. In fact, I'm still not quite sure if I am ready.

A graceful and fascinating look at a subject like depression, I found moments within the film that were utterly spellbinding, and in those moments I was sure I was in love with this work by Von Trier. However, every so often I was forced to question whether the nature of the storytelling and the pacing of…

"The film needs to be slower and duller at the start so that the viewers who walked into the wrong theatre have time to leave before the main action starts."
-Andrei Tarkovsky

An enigmatic feature with wannabe Tarkovskian cinematography, planetary imagery, a classical score and a high-budget-looking Dogme style? Trier must be out of his mind!

Not quite.

Melancholia's two very first shots are references to cinematic influences:

- The first pays respect to L'année dernière à Marienbad (1961).
- The second shot displays the famous painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder entitled Jagers in de Sneeuw (The Hunters in the Snow), previously featured in two Tarkovsky masterpieces.

The film feels, above all, as an attempt to fix the evident…

Part of The December Project: Film #15

I put off watching Melancholia for a long time, just because I hated Lars Von Trier's previous film Antichrist so much, a film I found to be completely pretentious and downright disgusting on just about every level. Melancholia is a slight improvement from that film, but it is still completely pretentious (a word I don't like using), and even worse, boring.

Which is a shame, because not only is the opening and ending of this film quite fantastic, but even the central concept has itself set up pretty well for a powerful film that should theoretically rock you to your core. The film is sprinkled with little great moments and ideas that feel…

It's Lars von Trier alright. You know that the cinematography style is going to be how he likes it. Fortunately I think it looks beautiful. The film has the orgasmic orchestral score and the stunning performances you would expect out of a director as avid and talented as Trier. Charlotte Gainsbourg, who I believe to be the new Shelley Duvall, gives the best performance of the entire movie. Everything is interesting. Everyone is either tragic or pathetic, most of the time both. I would only give it points off for having almost identical thematic elements to it's predecessor, Antichrist, but it's poetic in a way that Antichrist isn't. With Antichrist we get a duality, male and female. Black and white.…

May 2017 Scavenger Hunt (#26) Task 8: Watch a film centering around a new hobby of yours, something you've been fond of for not more than a year or so. (Wedding Planning/Pondering Inevitable Doom.)

My List I Xplodera's Master List

I'm getting married in two days and I decided to indulge in my sick sense of humor, what can I say?

With the caveat that this is one of those ponderously slow films that has me constantly checking the runtime even when I'm enjoying myself, I think this is one of the greatest films I've ever seen. It's kind of a shame that Lars Von Trier made this because I think the film is always going to be somewhat marred…