Melanvomita - a Melancholia review (sort of, not really) When a film begins with a solid ten minutes of Time-Warp-esque bajillion-frames-a-second slow-motion clips of planetary movement, horses sitting down, dead birds pissing down around Kirsten Dunst’s head, and women looking concerned, you must immediately look back on the director’s career and assess if he has the filmic license to be this wanky. He probably does. Lars von Trier has been to the sweet arty-flatulent extremes - made hardcore porn aimed at primarily female audiences, and featured Willem Defoe in a horror film in which every hipster-oriented animal turns against him and his wife, eventuating in great violence towards various sexual organs, and blood pouring forth from places blood should not pour forth. It’s not a pretty filmography, but somehow Melancholia manages to be really quite pretty. I hasten to explain that I have never emerged from a film looking around at everyone else and discovering that we all have the same bewildered facial expression. I caught one woman’s eye and we mutually sniggered with total what-the-fuckness. However, this was not entirely plot-related, to any extent: I had entered the cinema having just wolfed down a delicious pile of rice and tom yum soup. It was not until I felt it creeping back up to meet the icecream I was eating that I suddenly realised something was very, very wrong. I suspected dodgy chicken, then the fact my natural yoghurt icecream may have been a hideous choice after hot acidic Thai food, and then I noticed the back of the seat in front of me relative to the camera. Clearly, von Trier had borrowed Cloverfield’s video equipment, but administered to it a great deal of Diazepam, thus producing gentle wobbling in every scene except stills of the rogue planet Melancholia and a single horseriding shot. My legs grew restless, the audience yawned for oxygen and I craved all the bags of pretzels on God’s green earth. Not only would pretzels have perhaps calmed my wailing oesophageal pathway, the bag could have been very handy too. But I digress, slightly. The acting in Melancholia is stunning, the characters completely unlovable, the location totally incredible and the resulting melatonin levels in your brain very, very high. The second half was so slow-moving I wanted to stick my fingers down my throat and make enough of a scene to get the hell out of there. I am generally a patient person, but when it feels like I am privy to the POV of a nodding-dog dashboard ornament sitting on someone’s shoulder, not even great acting satisfies. The thought of seeing this again makes my gallbladder weep precious, precious bile. Overall, from a plot perspective, I imagine this film will unsettle most people in some way. The first part, ‘Justine’, is quite gentle, albeit woozy and wracked with undertones of futility, even death. But for those who have watched someone’s inhibitions collapse around them in their weighted mental state, this film will hit hard. It’s dark. It’s really dark. As an afterthought, I still feel nauseous and it’s been a good two hours since I wobbled out of the theatre. If you decide to transfer some of your precious money to the hands of the great cinema wonderland to see Melancholia, may the Lord bless and keep your upper digestive tracts.

Melanvomita - a Melancholia review (sort of, not really)

When a film begins with a solid ten minutes of Time-Warp-esque bajillion-frames-a-second slow-motion clips of planetary movement, horses sitting down, dead birds pissing down around Kirsten Dunst’s head, and women looking concerned, you must immediately look back on the director’s career and assess if he has the filmic license to be this wanky.

He probably does. Lars von Trier has been to the sweet arty-flatulent extremes - made hardcore porn aimed at primarily female audiences, and featured Willem Defoe in a horror film in which every hipster-oriented animal turns against him and his wife, eventuating in great violence towards various sexual organs, and blood pouring forth from places blood should not pour forth. It’s not a pretty filmography, but somehow Melancholia manages to be really quite pretty.

I hasten to explain that I have never emerged from a film looking around at everyone else and discovering that we all have the same bewildered facial expression. I caught one woman’s eye and we mutually sniggered with total what-the-fuckness. However, this was not entirely plot-related, to any extent:

I had entered the cinema having just wolfed down a delicious pile of rice and tom yum soup. It was not until I felt it creeping back up to meet the icecream I was eating that I suddenly realised something was very, very wrong. I suspected dodgy chicken, then the fact my natural yoghurt icecream may have been a hideous choice after hot acidic Thai food, and then I noticed the back of the seat in front of me relative to the camera.

Clearly, von Trier had borrowed Cloverfield’s video equipment, but administered to it a great deal of Diazepam, thus producing gentle wobbling in every scene except stills of the rogue planet Melancholia and a single horseriding shot.

My legs grew restless, the audience yawned for oxygen and I craved all the bags of pretzels on God’s green earth. Not only would pretzels have perhaps calmed my wailing oesophageal pathway, the bag could have been very handy too.

But I digress, slightly. The acting in Melancholia is stunning, the characters completely unlovable, the location totally incredible and the resulting melatonin levels in your brain very, very high. The second half was so slow-moving I wanted to stick my fingers down my throat and make enough of a scene to get the hell out of there. I am generally a patient person, but when it feels like I am privy to the POV of a nodding-dog dashboard ornament sitting on someone’s shoulder, not even great acting satisfies. The thought of seeing this again makes my gallbladder weep precious, precious bile.

Overall, from a plot perspective, I imagine this film will unsettle most people in some way. The first part, ‘Justine’, is quite gentle, albeit woozy and wracked with undertones of futility, even death. But for those who have watched someone’s inhibitions collapse around them in their weighted mental state, this film will hit hard. It’s dark. It’s really dark.

As an afterthought, I still feel nauseous and it’s been a good two hours since I wobbled out of the theatre.

If you decide to transfer some of your precious money to the hands of the great cinema wonderland to see Melancholia, may the Lord bless and keep your upper digestive tracts.