Melancholia

[socketlevel]

Since Lumet is now gone, LVT is one of the only good ones who pushes the boundaries still alive. I can't wait to see this film.

[Pubrick]

Since Lumet is now gone, LVT is one of the only good ones who pushes the boundaries still alive. I can't wait to see this film.

haha what the fuck? i love early lumet as much as the next guy but you make him sound like he was Von Trier's contemporary. not only that, i can't think of any list that would place LVT and lumet in the same category or conceptualization of cinema that would group them together. they stood/stand for completely different things.. i mean really, what an irrelevant shout out.

and stefen and anyone else making the same mistake.. VON TRIER HAS NEVER MADE A MOVIE CALLED DOGMA... that's a kevin smith movie (another of lumet's contemporaries??????? LOL) ..  the movie von trier made under the dogme 95 manifesto is THE IDIOTS.. and later he made another movie called DOGVILLE. i can see how it gets mixed up but it's so wrong it really bears repeating.

anyway, on the subject of this movie.. i think LVT peaked at breaking the waves/dancer in the dark in terms of ambition and single minded direction. he definitely had something in mind with those films, and even the idiots. i think since then he entered his barry lyndon phase which hit him hard.. he basically admits this with the blatant Lyndon influence in Dogville. so he entered a deep depression where he just couldn't find his way out.. even his films reflected a lack of external imagination (manderlay) which he addressed with an experimental internalisation of film itself.

and now what we're seeing with antichrist (ignoring the boss of it all which as JB correctly pointed out is not a serious movie.. it doesn't even have a director half the time) is a gradual re emergence into a new post-tragic direction. knowing how melancholia and antichrist begin we can begin to understand the current phase of his films are framed in a post-tragic narrative.. is melancholia going to be pre-apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic?

i don't know if he expects to really find any meaning in anything like it seems he did with breaking the waves/dancer but he is definitely moving again in a legitimate artistic direction.

[socketlevel]

I'm sorry, the word boundary doesn't exclusively mean style. what I'm talking about is actually a lack of consistent style that impresses me. It's sad you took that comment to only mean they pushed boundaries in a similar approach... and really i guess they do; a lack of a unified approach within their own work.

the very reason lumet will not be remember as much as HIS contemporaries is the very fact he made vastly stylistic opposed films.  sure sure people will remember Scorsese because he's made the same looking film so many times. And i like those films, but to reinvent the wheel over and over again is superior by my checklist. it's not just Scorsese, the same goes for: Spielberg; de palma; aronofsky; tarantino; stone; hitchcock; gasper noe and the majority of other film makers i hate or love.

however, both lumet and LVT never make films that look the same. the way they were/are genius is in their ability to push the boundaries in style. Lumet's classics don't have a common "lumet feel", and neither does LVT's body of work. If i didn't know who Lumet was but had seen his films and someone told me the same guy that directed network also directed 12 angry men, serpico, dog day afternoon, murder on the orient express, before the devil knows your dead etc... I'd probably call him a liar. the same goes for dogville; the 5 obstructions; Antichrist; dancer in the dark; and breaking the waves.

Lumet and LVT have always pushed their own limitations, pushed their own boundries. to my delight they've surprised me with unique masterpieces time and time again.

I would like to think you would know better than think I'd make irrelevant shout outs without the knowledge of doing so. Lumet is tied as the greatest American director by my standards. He is tied with Kubrick, but even a Kubrick film feels like a Kubrick film... but he makes it up in other ways  

[wilder]

'Melancholia' Goes VOD On October 7th, One Month Before It Hits Theaters On November 11th
via The Playlist



Don't act so surprised. We pretty much figured this might happen when Magnolia picked up the film at the beginning of the year and as is usual for the indie label, one of the biggest arthouse films of the year will be available in your living room first before you can see it on the big screen. That's right, Lars Von Trier's "Melancholia" will go digital on October 7th before getting a limited release on November 11th.

We'll leave the VOD/theatrical debate for others but it's a bit of a mixed bag. On the one hand, if you live in a flyover state that probably wouldn't get "Melancholia" anyway, it means you can watch the movie right away and not long after it hits TIFF and the New York Film Festival. But on the other, it means that most will only experience Von Trier's gorgeously shot film on a small screen, a shame really because this emotionally apocalyptic film might the director's best looking effort in years and certainly deserves to be viewed in a theater. But realistically speaking, "Melancholia" was never going to light up the box office. A two hour plus film that is a metaphor for depression—even with a cast featuring Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Kiefer Sutherland, Charlotte Rampling, John Hurt, Alexander Skarsgård, Stellan Skarsgård and Udo Kier—there weren't going be lines around the block for it.

[Reel]

'Melancholia' Goes VOD On October 7th

That's on my birthday. Idk if I wanna watch a LVT on my bday.

[matt35mm]

Well, this will be playing at Fantastic Fest in Austin in September. If I can get in, I'll review it. Then you can decide whether or not you want to download it from whoever ripped it from the VOD...

[Jeremy Blackman]

I love the humble tagline.

[Stefen]

Well, this will be playing at Fantastic Fest in Austin in September. If I can get in, I'll review it. Then you can decide whether or not you want to download it from whoever ripped it from the VOD...

Didn't you see Antichrist before any of us too?

[matt35mm]

Yeah, because I was in the UK at the time, and it was released there significantly earlier than it was released in the US. Melancholia has been playing since May in some European countries.

[MacGuffin]

New Trailer

[Pubrick]

i think lars von trier has been gradually undestating how brilliant his films are since his idol tarkovsky hated Element of Crime.

even though he blames his depression for certain themes in recent times, or even the entire production of antichrist, it doesn't diminish the grandeur of his ideas and even his ability to capture the most elusive concepts.

this is an amazing film from the looks of it, controversy or not.. this is a most amazing idea that he just pulled out of his ass. what is a wedding, a wife, a sister, a mother, a husband -- anything that we know -- when the world is ending. since the film apparently begins with this certainty we are left to linger through the lives of these last few witnesses of end times. what is their worth, their rituals, their interpretation of physical phenomena.. yes even sex (it's von trier the perv as always remember!).. the answer is not even logical, not even liminal. it's inconsequential as the only thing that we are left with for certain is pure human emotions.. which is the title of the film, after all.

and yet he dedicated antichrist to tarkovsky. why? referring strictly to my opening comment, and remembering that Tarkovsky was also obsessed with end of the world scenarios (see his last film), we can surmise that he has not stopped wanting to emulate his idol. not in a simple level of plot mechanics, visuals, or thematic overlap.. but in the role he has come to play in modern cinema..

i think von trier stopped THINKING about his movies after Dancer in the Dark, and started feeling his way through the uncertain period that followed almost primitively. the dissolution of the dogville/grace trilogy, punctuated by the literally non-thinking directorial effort Boss of it All, marked the beginning of a new solid direction for von trier which is culminating in extremely personal films that do not think, are less concept (no dogme.. DOGMA means DOCTRINE -- a way of thinking) and reach beyond what his conscious abilities (and therefore arguably modern cinema's ability) are willing to attempt.

the way he described the making of antichrist is as if he made it despite himself, and that is the way we will primarily respond to his current output of films.

[RegularKarate]

First, I saw this during Fantastic Fest.  It was very good, but definitely not my favorite from LVT.  Still, lesser LVT is still a great film.
It made me almost as angry as most of his films do so he's definitely still got it.

Second, this showed before the movie and is definitely worth watching.  Very funny Von Trier and he confirms he still thinks he'll be doing Five Obstructions with Scorcese.

http://vimeo.com/30040688

[wilder]

Available On Demand via Amazon - http://tinyurl.com/3hxybda

And through other services - http://www.magpictures.com/ondemand

[samsong]

watched this on demand.  it has some strong moments, the last 20 minutes or so being particularly enveloping, but it's mostly redundant and flat-out silly in its mopey-ness.  more often than not it struck me as being whiny and childishly blatant in its attempt to render everything meaningless in the face of apocalypse.  p's projections of von trier's ideas and themes in melancholia are far more incisive and poignant than the film even begins to approach.  but it's certainly worth seeing.  excluding the already hyped prologue, which honestly didn't get me off the way it did some people/critics, there are some really breathtaking moments when sight and sound come together to inexplicably moving effect.  i guess wagner's the new go-to for cinematic ecstasy.  i'll definitely give it another look when it's in theaters and will happily admit being wrong if it reveals itself to be the masterpiece some have jumped to call it but my initial viewing has left me pretty indifferent.  

and i love udo kier.  so very much.  dunst winning best actress for this is a joke.  it's as if the award's become a consolation prize for having dealt with lars.  she's fine, good even, but not even close to blown away by her performance. 

[Jeremy Blackman]

Moving this to Now Playing. It's "Now Playing" enough for me.