Wednesday, October 19, 2011

take it to the limit

 "What did you expect?"


Look, I haven't been writing. Sorry. I think part of me died when people responded so negatively to Scream 4. Besides, try and name one good movie released this year. Go on...  Exactly!  Anyway, I'm inspired.

Did you ever have one of those childhood besties - you know, the ones who go through all your major life moments with you?  You put on her face for Prom.  You promised her she wasn't a slut while driving to her first abortion and she assured you that you weren't bulimic just because you always threw up chicken lo-mien.


Invariably, something innocuous happens in your twenties and you stop being super close.  Then you go from not being close to assuming you might be in a fight so more years go by without talking until you bump into each other in the champagne aisle at CVS and you both just start sobbing, vowing never to be parted again.  The next thing you know, you're the best man at her wedding where, even though she swore up and down that she's off the sauce, she downs a fifth of Jack Daniels and winds up fucking a cater waiter on the golf course in her wedding dress.  Does any of this sound remotely familiar?


This is the experience of Lars Von Trier's Melancholia (2011).  Thank God.


Chock full of homages to Tarkovsky and Cassavetes, Melancholia is a return to form for Lars - much closer in DNA to Breaking the Waves than his past few features.  But who cares?  The real story is here Kiki Dunst.  I love her.


I love how fantastic she looks in her wedding dress (Kiki, where did you get all those boobies!?).  I love that we're in our thirties and we can put the past behind us.  I love that she's not afraid to look like hell.  I love that she's boozy.  I love how much she can convey without dialogue.  I love her teeth.  I love that we both get near-crippling anxiety.  I love the contempt she has for Charlotte Gainsbourg (really, Lars, you couldn't get Nicole back?).  I love this movie.  Melancholia is your best coffee table book come to life, infused with unexpected, raw emotionality juxtaposed alongside state of the art effects better than anything you'd see in Transformers.


It's nice to feel something again.  I was getting worried.

1 comment:

  1. Squeezing out tears through my giggle fit. -Ashley

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