MELANCHOLIA: The Film Babble Blog Review

I missed this movie when it played in Raleigh at the Colony Theater, and in nearby Cary at the Galaxy Cinema a few months back, but I just caught up with it, as it releases on DVD and Blu ray today:



MELANCHOLIA (Dir. Lars von Trier, 2011)







It would be an understatement to say that I’ve had issues with the films of Lars von Trier. DANCER IN THE DARK depressed the Hell out of me, DOGVILLE supremely weirded me out, and I felt like I had been assaulted by his last film, ANTICHRIST.



But I actually found myself enjoying good sized chunks of Trier’s latest: MELANCHOLIA. It’s a much gentler film than he’s done before, even as it depicts the destruction of all mankind, and it contains beautiful sequences of visually poetic shots, so it’s got that going for it too.



Don’t get me wrong – this is not a complete rave. I still have issues, like the meandering narrative, the abundance of questionable cuts, the discarded story threads and characters, and it’s way too long at 135 min.



Still, it’s a Helluva half a good film – Trier’s most watchable, and least abrasive yet.



In a performance that starts off flighty but grows into her finest yet, Kirsten Dunst as a woman on her wedding day at her sister’s (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and brother-in-law’s (Kiefer Sutherland) opulent estate.



Dunst’s new husband is played by Alexander Skarsgård, son of Stellan Skarsgård, who is also in the film as Dunst’s arrogant asshole employer. An icy Charlotte Rampling and a charmingly daft John Hurt appear as the bride’s divorced parents, mostly seen in the wedding reception party that Dunst can’t seem to stay 2 minutes at.



This is fairly typical dysfunctional family drama stuff, but it’s lifted by the palpable tension especially between the sisters, Dunst and Gainsbourg.



It’s not until over an hour into the film that we learn about the approaching planet named Melancholia that Sutherland, whose hobby happens to be astronomy, keeps assuring his worried wife is going to closely pass (a “fly-by” he calls it) but not collide with Earth.



We know he’s wrong from opening visual overture of sorts, that mostly shows slow motion shots of imagery from throughout the film, set to Wagner’s “Tristan and Isolde” prelude, in which we see the small planet of Melancholia smashing into Earth.



I can see why some folks were disappointed Dunst didn’t get nominated for an Academy Award for her part in this film (MELANCHOLIA didn’t get any Oscar noms btw). She’s more invested and believable than I’ve witnessed before, and she does the artsy nude scenes fearlessly – it’s Lars von Trier, so we’ve got to have a shots of somebody naked laying in a forest.



Whether one will appreciate MELANCHOLIA depends on one’s interest in (or tolerance of) long weird art films. I liked it more than I thought I would, and its impression has lingered with me (not in a bad way) since I’ve seen it, so color me mildly impressed - which is so much better than being depressed, weirded out, or assaulted.



Special Features: Featurettes -“About MELANCHOLIA,” “The Universe,” “The Visual Style,” “Visual Effects,” HDNet: A Look at MELANCHOLIA,” and Theatrical Trailers.

More later...

ALL GOOD THINGS: The Film Babble Blog Review

ALL GOOD THINGS (Dir. Andrew Jarecki, 2010)

Andrew Jarecki, director of one of the best documentaries of the Aughts (CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS), stays in the world of non-fiction for his first narrative drama based on what's been called "the most notorious murder case in New York history."

Loosely based on the life on real estate mogul Robert Durst whose wife Kathleen McCormack mysteriously disappeared almost 3 decades ago, this film begins as a love story with overhanded ominous overtones.

Through a framing device of later court testimony providing narration we meet Ryan Gosling and Kirsten Dunst as the couple, renamed David and Katie Marks, who meet in 1971 and seem initially happy, well, if she looks the other way when he mumbles to himself.

Gosling's powerful NYC property owner father played with suave menace by Frank Langella doesn't care for Dunst or his son's hippy lifestyle (the couple smokes joints and own a health food store out in the sticks in Vermont called "All Good Things").

Langella wants his son to be back in New York working for the family business - work than mainly involves shady money pick-ups from sleazy tenants. Gosling gives in to his father and the couple give up the country for the big city.

We learn from Lily Rabe as a outgoing friend of Gosling's that his mother had committed suicide in front of her son . This may explain why he demands that Dunst immediately get an abortion when she tells him she's pregnant.

The couple grow apart after that with Gosling in NY while Dunst stays at their weekend lake house pursuing a medical career.

Gosling has several violent outbursts aimed at his worried wife and after one particularly gloomy evening at their second home Dunst vanishes.

Throughout the film we see flashes of a dark figure hauling garbage bags that presumably have human remains onto a bridge in the middle of the night.

Despite the suspicion of many, Gosling is never charged with a crime and moves on until years later when he's charged with the murder of a cranky neighbor (the always welcome Phillip Baker Hall).

Though he claims self defense and is acquitted, of course, strong doubts linger.

The film gets a bit unfocused in its final third, but it was on shaky ground much earlier it must be said. Gosling is effectively cold and creepy and the film matches that demeanor beat by beat yet the overall take-away isn't one of eerie fascination.

ALL GOOD THINGS acts as if it has secrets to tell, but it really only has a few speculations up its sleeve.

It feels like a slightly glorified "made for TV" melodrama like those shown on the Lifetime network.

The supporting cast is capable - Dunst registers more realistically than she has before for me, and as her coke snotting best friend Kristen Wiig (Saturday Night Live) has a few moments as, I guess, light comic relief, but there isn't a lot of weight to this plodding procedural.

There have been great inconclusive films before such as David Fincher's ZODIAC and Jarecki's own doc CAPTURING THE FREIDMANS - films that passionately probe for the truth through a murky web of contradictions, but ALL GOOD THINGS simply doesn't have the hook or enough layers to make it anything more than a forgettable true crime thriller throwaway.

More later....