A 1001 Films We Will Never See, Britt and Liz's Journey Through Cinema: Joint "Melancholia" Review

My Melancholia review

Britt

Y SO SRS

Okay, Melancholia. Blah blah blah Lars Von Trier blah blah weeping Charlotte Gainsbourg (not disemboweling any penises this time) blah blah Kirsten Dunst can really act! Blah blah oh look Kiefer Sutherland now has something to do after they cancelled 24.

JUST KIDDING. I totally Ashton Kutchered you.

For me personally, there was a LOT riding on this film, because Lars Von Trier is a whirlwind of a fellow! I mean, this guy is just something else. It’s as if we live in this world of movie directors who are chocolate bars (the Hershey variety, noneother) and here is this dude who is made out of vanilla plastic. He made Bjork want to never act again. HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN!

What I saw of Antichrist left me bemused, entertained and very aroused. I happened to watch the entirety of Melancholia, unlike my companion, who passed out like a sleepless baby within the first few seconds. Seriously, I kept glancing at Liz to make sure she was:

a.)    Still alive

b.)    Cognizant

c.)    Breathing?

I tried to stir her to action a few times but that was to no avail. Like, poke, you okay dude? And some incoherent J EWARRJKERJKER JABBERWOCKY I’m just really tired Brittany! Whatever; we both had rough nights. My night involved the police and making out on a rock. How are you doing?

That aside, watching Melancholia felt akin to sitting in a darkened planetarium with weird new age music pumping. And I really, really liked it.

The idea behind the movie for Von Trier was the concept of how utterly calm depressives can stay when the world is falling apart around them. And oh boy! 

When you have a gigantic planet about to destroy the Earth, named Melancholia (why would you name anything after a form of massive depression, beats me), well! The world cannot fall apart more than that.

Kirsten Dunst is the depressive in question, the bride-copywriter who just can’t get happy. And it’s like sometimes you just want to crawl into the film and slap her into submission, but because this is a weird form of reality you cannot do so. Kirsten Dunst is hot; she lies naked in a field at one point. I digress. Twas nice.

She won the acting award at Cannes for her role in Melancholia and it’s obvious why. She plays as placidly sad as one possibly can. When her wedding dinner turns into a sheeeetshow, she’s pretty down. When her sister (Charlotte Gainsbourg, the lovely woman herself) flips out and is screaming and crying and wants to drink wine and sit with her son and sing a song and watch the world burn to a crisp, Kirsten tells her straight-out “I think your plan is a piece of shit!” Best moment of the movie, right there, in a nutshell.

I THINK YOUR PLAN IS A PIECE OF SHIT, KIRSTEN!

Overall, Melancholia is a gorgeous work of art. But perhaps sometimes it tries too hard and can come off as really, really pretentious. The music and the visuals and the story itself, as well as the acting, deserve applause. Lars Von Trier did good here. If you approach it with an open mind and a palette for aesthetics, you will probably find yourself impressed. Or asleep, if you are LizRo. 

Liz's Turn

Britt seems to have been rocked to her core by this artistic movie. “It was artistic, Liz,” she said to me. As if my being pop-culturally challenged means I haven’t any sense of art. On the contrary, my dears. I’m one right-brained bunny. I know what Pinterest is. I’m crafty. I like watching Bob Ross. And I couldn’t have gotten into this film if it were made out of Stretch-Armstrong-inspired spandex. Was this due to my hangover? PROB.AB.LY. Let’s talk about that.

The morning of the Melancholia review, LizRo was recovering from the drunken escapade I’d been roped into the night before. All a hungover schmuck wants is to do is pop an ibuprofen, put a crazy straw in a bathtub full of water, crawl into the depths of the black hole, and DIE. In the Valley of the Sun, that’s is a tall order. At about 10 am that morning, I had gone on the Odyssey of Shame: I walked about 893 blocks in the blazing sun—sans sunglasses, water, and dignity—to the nearest bus stop. THE BUS STOP. Where I proceeded to ride public transportation in my platform heels. ODYSSEY OF SHAME. Never again, friends. 

I was lying on my deathbed when my significant other, Britt, came over to rehash our previous evenings’ events and watch the ever-so-artistic Melancholia—about that:

The first 8 minutes of the movie were this dark, bizzare montage set to ultra-dramatic music. How can I say this... I DIDN’T FUCKING GET IT. Though visually stunning and stylistically Annie Leibovitz-esque, these scenes were moving so fucking slowly—literally—I couldn’t tell if the movie was playing properly. The music said to me, “Liz, this is DEEP SHIT.” I said to myself, “Wtf IS this?” 


See what I mean?

I watched long enough to get the idea that Kirsten Dunst is living my life. She’s a copywriter getting married to some poor bastard. You can see the parallels. Then I drifted off in an effort to sleep away my hangover. Britt later explained that earth was about to be smashed by a planet (Melancholia, waka waka), and apparently this is why Kirsten was thrust into a state of PMS. Any other questions about the Melan-artistica should be directed to B. Kemp, who watched it in its entirety. 

Since my area of expertise is achieving a wicked hangover, I’ll impart some knowledge on that subject; I leave you with the following article:

http://gizmodo.com/5889806/faux-loko-the-diy-drink-i-shouldnt-be-telling-you-about/gallery/1

real art

xoxo,

LizRo