Melancholia (Lars von Trier, 2011)

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

I might opt for the AE in that case. How good is the commentary?

[mfunk9786]

Haven't listened yet, but if past von Trier commentaries are any indication... oh come on, just get the AE

[knives]

The AE is R0 right?

[swo17]

Caché is region free.

[mfunk9786]

It's Region B.

[knives]

As is Essential Killing.

Edit: Guess I'm going 'murican then.

[knives]

I tried playing that game, but they're too unreliable and expensive at this point.

[mfunk9786]

Not the modified LGs on the market. They're fantastic players and impervious to firmware update issues.

[colinr0380]

The AE disc also includes 'Filmbyen - the new Mecca of cinema' which is a nice overview of the repurposed army camp headquarters of Zentropa. It is not really relevant to Melancholia (in fact it seems to date more from the period just post Dogville) and deals mostly with the well worn subject of the Dogme films, but it is a nice addition.

I might opt for the AE in that case. How good is the commentary?

The commentary is excellent - may I point to the couple of the more salacious parts that I quoted in a post above? A nice surprise for me was that the commentary with Von Trier is mediated by Peter Schepelern who had previously done the fantastic commentary for The Element of Crime with Stig Bjorkman on the Electric Parc E Trilogy box that was also released in the UK by Tartan. Von Trier does bring up the subject of that press conference a few times, making Schepelern a little nervous as he says that he had promised the producers not to bring the subject up! However they do end up getting into that as well, particularly during the end credits.

[HistoryProf]

very late to this party, but as someone who vociferously loathed Antichrist on here I thought I should voice my enjoyment of Melancholia for the record. I can't admit to fully loving it, but it sure is pretty and Kirsten Dunst was a revelation. I just didn't think she had that in her. I would echo the sentiment that there is plenty of comedy here - the "throwing the bouquet" was hilarious - but I did find the two segments a bit jarring.

One aspect alluded to above was how little we know of Justine's struggles and her relationship prior to the wedding - which I think is the root of my confusion re: the abrupt exit of the new husband with his parents. He is presented as the supreme caretaker for the entire first hour, has bought them land to help save her from the greyness, and otherwise exhibits every evidence of being fully aware of her clinical depression and his desire to save her. It thus seemed entirely incongruous to me that he would simply bail when she flaked out on their wedding night - if anything, a true caretaker would spring into action and try to whisk her away to safety. I don't know, but for some reason that abrupt coda to Part I was jarring to me and felt false - precisely because of how pitch perfect Dunst's portrayal of someone struggling with maintaining the mask of happiness for everyone else had been to that point.

Otherwise, I would never pretend to fully understand LVT or whatever it is he is trying to say, but I did find the performances uniformly great, and the general tone of each act superbly in key with dynamic between the two sisters. The build up to the finale was truly exhilarating. I suspect this will be the first LVT film I actually seek out to add to my collection, as I found myself wishing I could revisit it again today, and I was only able to watch on sDVD from a Redbox so I am anxious to see the blu and crank the surround.

[cgm13]

This may be a bad question to ask ... for us in the States that aren't region free yet is there a place that you to get a hold of an audio file of the Von Trier commentary to listen to?

[flyonthewall2983]

Just watched it on Netflix. Kicking myself a little for not having seen it on a bigger screen.

[dad1153]

Just watched it on Netflix. Kicking myself a little for not having seen it on a bigger screen.

You should have. Even at Angelika's postcard-size theater screens the impact of the opening montage and final scene alone (audio as well as video) just blew my mind.

[flyonthewall2983]

Well, really kicking myself since I just discovered that there is an arthouse theater here that probably did show it during it's initial run. Once I get a kick-ass 70" flat-screen, that is the first Blu-ray I'll buy or put in.

This is the first von Trier movie I've seen, and hands-down it is better than Tree Of Life. I wouldn't have said it otherwise if the comparison hadn't been brought up, but Lars' use of sci-fi tropes and imagery were more linear here than what Malick had done. More down-to-earth, no pun intended.

[ianthemovie]

I re-watched this tonight for the first time since seeing it in the theater last fall, and I just noticed all of the business with the 19th hole on the golf course. It struck me as yet another joke von Trier plays on the self-important know-it-all Kiefer Sutherland character, who insists not once but twice during Part 1 that the golf course has 18 holes!

I was also struck by how similar Sutherland's character is to Willem Dafoe's in Antichrist. The scenes in which Sutherland is playing the part of the learned professional, trying to calm down the physically distraught Charlotte Gainsbourg (and insisting that Dunst's mental illness is something she can control), are remarkably similar to the scenes of Dafoe doing the same things to Gainsbourg in Antichrist. These two films are almost inextricable in their doubling of key scenes, themes, motifs, lines (Dunst in Melancholia: "The world is evil"; Gainsbourg in Antichrist: "Nature is Satan's church"). Since von Trier's films often break down into threes (albeit some of them unfinished) I wouldn't be surprised if his next film, The Nymphomaniac, completes the triptych, with Gainsbourg being the through-line in the cast.

[zedz]

I re-watched this tonight for the first time since seeing it in the theater last fall, and I just noticed all of the business with the 19th hole on the golf course. It struck me as yet another joke von Trier plays on the self-important know-it-all Kiefer Sutherland character, who insists not once but twice during Part 1 that the golf course has 18 holes!

Golf courses do have 18 holes. If there's a 19th hole appearing in the film, it's a case of von Trier messing with us (for whatever reason), not one of the characters making a foolish mistake. "The 19th Hole" is the bar where golfers go and get plastered after a game, not an actual place.

If Sutherland's character was insisting that his soccer field only had two goalposts, or his tennis court only had one net, we wouldn't dismiss him as a 'self-important know-it-all' simply because von Trier happened to offer us a trippy glimpse of a triangular soccer field, or elongated, double-netted tennis court at some other point.

[Mr Sausage]

If Sutherland's character was insisting that his soccer field only had two goalposts, or his tennis court only had one net, we wouldn't dismiss him as a 'self-important know-it-all' simply because von Trier happened to offer us a trippy glimpse of a triangular soccer field, or elongated, double-netted tennis court at some other point.

Unless of course that's meant to signify the character's inability to apprehend the unusual, the fantastic, the sublime, something like that, because he's too busy assuming and insisting that reality matches convention to notice these things even when they are right there to be seen.

A possibility with Melancholia (tho' von Trier messing with us is equally possible, it being von Trier after all).

[zedz]

It's Sutherland's house (and golf course) isn't it? I assumed he would have put the golf course in there in the first place.

Also, that reading of his character seems at odds with his behaviour towards Melancholia itself, the unusual / sublime / horrific reality of which he arguably accepts more completely than any other character, and the small matter of an extra golf hole here or there is a ridiculously trivial detail to get all worked up over compared to the planet that's about to annihilate you.

I have no idea what purpose any '19th hole' stuff might serve (if indeed it is intended to serve a purpose and not just be an incongruous gag - possibly even one perpetrated by a character), but I don't think the theory that it's been specifically inserted into the film to symbolically scold a particular character (who does more than enough at the level of character to invite our criticism) holds water.

[flyonthewall2983]

I think it's his course, did a Nigel Tufnel and put one more hole in.

[Mr Sausage]

Yeah, I didn't really have a coherent interpretation to offer. It just occurred to me in the moment and I typed it out. That bit could easily be a joke, the 19th hole being of course where you go when the game is over (nudge, nudge).

[colinr0380]

It has been too long since I last saw the film to say for sure but could this mythical '19th hole' be the area of the course where Justine goes to urinate and look at the stars during the wedding, and perhaps where they build the flimsy stick wigwam at the end? Suggesting that Sutherland could never be part of that circle even if he had not committed suicide since he never actually went onto the golf course. And that perhaps it was important for him to have committed suicide because by abandoning Claire it was the only way that she and her son would have left the house for the golf course to spend their last moments togther with Justine?

[ianthemovie]

Unless of course that's meant to signify the character's inability to apprehend the unusual, the fantastic, the sublime, something like that, because he's too busy assuming and insisting that reality matches convention to notice these things even when they are right there to be seen.

A possibility with Melancholia (tho' von Trier messing with us is equally possible, it being von Trier after all).

This was basically how I interpreted it. Obviously there are 18 holes on a typical golf course, and obviously Sutherland's character should know exactly how many are on his own--and yet von Trier pointedly shows us a flag marking a 19th hole not only during the surreal prologue sequence, but also later during the hail storm scene. It's an absurdist touch, but seems to me a way of emphasizing that as much as Sutherland claims to know/understand the world around him (at one point literally saying something to the effect of "Trust me, I'm a scientist!") he's blind to even the most obvious things when they happen to fall outside the realm of expectation or convention.

[manicsounds]

If you listen to the commentary, the 19th hole topic is brought up.

[Zot!]

I should know better, but I've become of those lunatics who cares about packaging apparently, because I just bought this.

[domino harvey]

Pretty cool, who put it out?