Nymphomaniac: Volume 1

NYMPHOMANIAC:  VOLUME 1        D                 

Denmark  Germany  France  Belgium  Great Britain  (Volume 1, 118 mi, Volume II, 123 mi)  2014  ‘Scope  d:  Lars von Trier     Official Site

Another epic flop from the man who makes outrageous claims to greatness, but remains the most pretentious filmmaker on the planet.  Even early in von Trier’s career (whose name is Lars Trier, as he himself added the "von" to emulate Erich von Stroheim and Josef von Sternberg), he considered himself the natural heir to Danish master Carl Theodor Dreyer, using Dreyer’s unrealized screenplay for a made-for-TV version of Euripides’ Greek tragedy MEDEA (1988), a film that begins with a dedication to Dreyer, calling his film “an homage to the master.”  In more recent films, von Trier is giving thanks in the end credits to Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky, in whose company he only appears dwarfed in comparison, but it doesn’t stop the swelled expectations from this director who becomes more and more irrelevant with each movie.  While this is originally conceived in two parts, much like Tarantino’s KILL BILL Pt’s 1 and 2 (2003-04), this reviewer has seen enough in the first section so there will be no interest in Part 2, expected to be released in several weeks, while in Denmark it was released as one five-hour film, which will likely make the DVD copies.  Every von Trier film now, whatever the subject matter, is all about the director himself, as he is such a megalomaniac that he can think of little else, as all roads lead back to him.  Charlotte Gainsbourg returns as von Trier’s muse for the third film in a row going back to ANTICHRIST (2009), perfectly suiting the director’s taste for self-abnegation, the driving force of nearly every von Trier film since BREAKING THE WAVES (1996).  You’d think the audience would grow sick of a director trotting out the exact same psychological state of mind in every movie, expressing a similar masochistic impulse to fall victim to obsessional impulses that only destroy humankind.  For his legions of followers, apparently, they can’t get enough, yet for others, it’s gotten ridiculous and we’ve had enough. 

Once more, von Trier can’t stop himself from eternally long monologues, which only grow in dreary yet descriptive detail of endless monotony, where sex is used not so much as a clinical subject matter, as shown here, but as a battering ram for human obsession.  Gainsbourg as Joe is found battered and beaten, lying unconscious on the street, where she is discovered by a curious academic named Seligman (Stellan Skarsgård), who nurses her back to health, and in doing so, listens to her recount a life full of meaningless sexual exploits, which she uses to drive home the point that she’s a despicably contemptible and worthless human being.  While Seligman suggests there are countless examples in literature and the arts of equally contemptible human behavior, he provides a counterpoint to her theme, usually rambling on about one of his favorite personal obsessions, like fly-fishing, turning her wretched sexual exploits into a common sport, which he meticulously details in his own mind in order to help understand where she’s coming from, yet unlike fishermen, and despite her claims otherwise, Joe receives no pleasure in sex, as it only temporarily numbs the pain.  Seen in a Sex Addiction treatment program, Joe refuses to acknowledge the term sex addiction, preferring to believe in the lust of her female anatomy.  But lust suggests human desire, yet for Joe it’s little more than a necessary trip to the grocery store, just part of the typical routine of the day, where she has 9 or 10 sexual encounters daily.  Joe’s early life is played by Stacy Martin, where the audience may cringe at how she and her teenage girlfriend B (Sophie Kennedy Clark) casually try to have sex with as many men as possible on a passenger train, where there’s obviously no feelings involved whatsoever, in fact, love is what they’re rebelling against, developing dogma-like rules for how to play the game, never repeating the same guy twice.  Over time, however, B falls for a guy she wants to keep seeing, which only infuriorates Joe, who finds that overly sentimental. 

Whether it is Stacy Martin or Charlotte Gainsbourg, both are tainted by emotional dysfunction, as they simply don’t feel anything or show any empathy towards others.  All they think about is themselves, all that matters is thinking about themselves, where like vampires who are endlessly dead, feeding their obsession is their only way of life.  It’s difficult for the audience to watch a series of continual affairs where the woman are continually naked, engage in loveless and passionless sex, shown with that same expressionless look on their face, where this has little to do with sex as we know it.  While something is going on in their heads, there’s little attraction other than these men qualify as sexually active males, where one is as good as another.  In some cases, we never even see their faces, as they simply become an anonymous stream of male appendages to use.  There is nothing remotely curious about any of this, because both Joe and Seligman are clueless about just how uninteresting they become after awhile, yet the audience is forced to endure more, becoming more of an exercise in marathon manipulation than anything else, where it has the feel of being bullied by a director who insists upon maintaining control long after the interest is gone.  While expressed in the utter detachment of a clinical exercise, the masochistic predictability of the stunted emotional growth factor becomes all too tedious after awhile, as from childhood to adulthood, Joe remains stuck in the same rut.  While this is not a film to recommend to anyone, it does have one redeeming scene involving Uma Thurman who brings a zest for life into the forefront, like a force of nature, providing what’s missing in the rest of the picture.  Her sequence is well-written and she astounds, as always, dominating the scene, literally overwhelming the presence of everyone else on the set, making them all seem so insignificant.  Her appearance is stunning for injecting well-needed humor into the movie, but she’s only in one scene, so the rest of the film is subject to the same endless parade of self indulgence, nonchalance, guilt, and self-loathing, where one soon grows tired of all the attention paid to this gloomy nonsense, the final in his trilogy about depression, following ANTICHRIST (2009) and Melancholia (2011), where it’s depressing to think this is what qualifies as a serious effort to understand depression. 

Much better films on the subject are Hitchcock’s The Wrong Man (1956) and Vertigo (1958), Ingmar Bergman’s THROUGH A GLASS DARKLY (1961), Frank Perry’s DAVID AND LISA (1962), John Cassavetes’ A Child Is Waiting (1963) and A Woman Under the Influence (1974),  Robert Rossen’s Lilith (1964), Roman Polanski’s REPULSION (1965), Werner Herzog’s AGUIRRE, THE WRATH OF GOD (1972), Albert and David Maysles GREY GARDENS (1975), Robert Redford’a ORDINARY PEOPLE (1980), Graeme Clifford’s FRANCES (1982), Jane Campion’s SWEETIE (1989) and AN ANGEL AT MY TABLE (1990), Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky’s BROTHER’S KEEPER (1992), Lodge Kerrigan’s CLEAN, SHAVEN (1993) and KEANE (2004), Scott Hicks’ SHINE (1996), Terry Zwigoff’s Ghost World (2001), Michael Haneke’s THE PIANO TEACHER (2001), William Friedkin’s Bug (2006), Joachim Trier’s Reprise (2006), Sam Mendes’ REVOLUTIONARY ROAD (2008), Jeff Nichols’ Take Shelter (2011), Sean Durkin’s Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011), Kenneth Lonnergan’s 2011 Top Ten Films of the Year #2 Margaret, and David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook (2012).

Reprise

REPRISE                     A        
Norway (105 mi)  2006  d:  Joachim Trier           Official site [us]

Inexplicably, this film opened very favorably in Europe two years ago but is only now finding its way to an American release despite having enormous energy and appeal.  Joachim Trier, born in Denmark and twice Norway’s skateboard champion during his teens while also making several skateboard videos at the time, is a cousin of Danish director Lars von Trier, who at some point in his life felt the need to add the mysterious “von” to his name.  Since the mid 90’s, Danish films have undergone a revival on the world’s stage, producing some of the most prominent directors working today, such as Lars von Trier’s THE KINGDOM (1994), BREAKING THE WAVES (1996), DANCER IN THE DARK (2000), and DOGVILLE (2003), Thomas Vinterberg’s THE CELEBRATION (1998), Soren Kragh-Jacobsen’s MIFUNE (1999), Lone Scherfig’s ITALIAN FOR BEGINNERS (2001), Susanne Bier’s BROTHERS (2005) and AFTER THE WEDDING (2006), not to mention Lucas Moodysson in Swedish/Danish co-productions.  What all these films have in common are intelligent scripts and expert direction laying the foundation for some extraordinary performances, oftentimes by unheralded or non-professional actors, and this film is no exception.  The story about two longtime friends who aspire to be writers was written by the director along with his longtime friend, Eskil Vogt, wonderfully expressed from the opening scene when Phillip (Anders Danielsen Lie) and Erik (Espen Klouman Høiner) drop manuscripts into the mailbox of novels they have written while the narrator toys with the audience by suggesting various outcomes that “could” happen, playfully using freeze frames and quick cuts always keeping viewers a bit off guard, much of it conveyed through a glorious montage of Nordic culture on parade in Oslo (with effective change of speed) that plays to the pulsating punk rhythms of Joy Division’s “New Dawn Fades” Reprise movie cuts where Joy Division - New Dawn Fades sounds in background YouTube (3:17).  While Phillip is immediately recognized as a vibrant new talent, Erik’s spirits deflate in the opposite direction when he hears nothing from publishers, thinking he is an abysmal failure.  But just as quickly, Phillip suffers a mysterious breakdown that may or may not have anything to do with his relationship with Kari (Viktoria Winge), a gorgeous, immensely appealing young girl he obviously still has affections for—all this in the first ten minutes of the film.   

Phillip doesn’t seem to be himself, finding his memory and his interests waning ever further from his grasp, including his mixed up feelings for Kari which frustrate him, as they’re not as vivid as he recalls, adding to his morose view that he has somehow lost touch with the world, shown with a delicate touch, including the quietest, somber music from Ola Fløttum and Knut Schreiner.  At one point we flash forward six days, at another point it’s six months, using an imaginative editing style that keeps moving back and forth in time while remaining focused on the intimate friendship of the two who are collectively part of a close circle of friends, most all of them as well read and smart as they are, which serves as a combustible engine that drives this film with untiring interest and energy, much of it hilarious from the outset, as these guys are endlessly critical of everyone and everything they see, yet are still good natured goofs with one another, where one is a lead singer in a punk band that offers a rousing contemptuous view of the world with songs like “Fingerfuck the Prime Minister.”  When Erik finally hears from an interested publisher that his new novel will be published immediately, he garners all the attention and acclaim that Phillip has been avoiding.  Yet this is not necessarily a good thing for a writer.  Voracious readers when they were younger, both idolized a legendary writer, Sten Egil Dahl (Sigmund Sæverud), who became the voice of his generation before retreating from public view in order to write.   Both feel a connection to hold onto the good natured camaraderie of their friends, yet also stake out an unknown territory within that requires further exploration through writing, a solitary endeavor at odds with social relationships.  Phillip’s intense personal struggle to reclaim what his brain can do is equivalent to the practice of writing itself, where nothing is assured except an internal struggle, shut off from the world outside, just one man alone with his own challenges.  This entire film is a beautiful journey, a quest for meaning, where friends can’t help blurting out their thoughts with each other, blending, in a beautiful way, all their pent up anger and irritation as well as happiness and joy that are so easily interchanged right alongside moments of sadness and gloom.

The actors themselves are noteworthy, suggesting such a fresh ease of comfort in their performances, where the lack of artifice and complete believability is part of the film’s appeal, with an ensemble cast whose distinguishing characteristic is intelligence.  A few notable scenes, Phillip and Kari’s return to Paris where they initially met which couldn’t this time have been more excruciatingly painful to watch, bookended later by his abrupt pronouncement at her workplace, barging in on the mindless repetition of telemarketing offering her only the slightest idea of hope, perhaps the most vulnerable moment in the film where that adrenal rush of hope can be annihilated within seconds yet instead feels like a sudden breakthrough of possibilities.  But certainly the best moment in the film is the sustained brilliance of the party sequence, which relishes its own brand of humor, where the young lads turn the place upside down with the help of an iPod, where the frantically alive music of Kathleen Hanna and Le Tigre’s “Deceptacon” Reprise clip YouTube (2:28) is simply irresistible, perhaps a last bloom of youth where they can do whatever the hell they please before the inevitable onset of adulthood and responsibilities set in, where hard fought principles disappear overnight as they suddenly become all that they found irritating earlier in life.  This is an extraordinary depiction of youth rarely seen in films, as it all feels like we’ve been there before, yet it also offers the best and the brightest with smart, crackling dialogue that doesn’t take itself for granted, that offers a fresh wit with surprising originality throughout, continually altering the pace of the film, weaving in the collective imagination of art, mixing the painfully alone and meticulous work habits with the socially gregarious, leaving open a world of maybes, of what could have been, where multiple ideas literally jump off the screen simply by the way the story is told.  There’s enough of an edge that it capitulates to no one, with some brilliant use of music, excellent hand-held camera work from Jakob Ihre, and despite a taut structure, Trier allows the freewheeling improvisational nature of his characters the uninhibited freedom to penetrate our souls with brash audacity.   

Rid of Me

RID OF ME                             B-                   

USA  (90 mi)  2011  d:  James Westby             Official site      

This is like a horrible social experiment gone wrong, as uncomfortable as any horror flick, where low self esteem is taken to new heights in this low key, ultra sarcastic Mumblecore take on the hypocrisy of the complacent and comfortable middle class, where what appears to be a typical marriage turns into a psychotic side show.  Married for less than two years, this seemingly happy couple is forced to admit financial defeat career wise as the husband Mitch (John Keyser) has to return from Southern California back to his home town in Oregon where his old high school friends have a job waiting for him.  His wife Meris (Katie O’Grady) has serious reservations about what to expect as she’s leaving everything behind to seek new grounds.  When a surprise party awaits them at their new home, it’s like an invasion of all the juvenile antics left behind in high school, where Mitch fits right in, one of the missing pieces of the old gang, while Meris is immediately exposed as a fraud and an outsider, as she’s not one of “them.” Despite all the superficial smiles to supposedly make her feel welcome, no one reaches out for her and Mitch ignores her pleas of how terrible it makes her feel to have to socialize with people who despise her.  Mitch is welcomed home in style, happy to be with the friends he left behind, and can’t believe the rush of how good it feels after having to admit personal defeat, but he’s no help whatsoever to Meris who is continually humiliated.  When she finally makes a friend on her own, a couple down the street with a newborn baby, the gang gasps in dismay as the husband is from the Middle East, the subject of an FBI interrogation, where they all suspect he may have terrorist connections with al Qaeda, making derisive racial comments with apparent ease, which horrifies Meris, as no one found their remarks at all ugly and hateful.  Welcome back to high school. 

Written, filmed, directed, edited and produced by Westby, shot entirely in Portland, Oregon in twenty days, the director makes no reference to the infamous, similarly entitled PJ Harvey song and little use of the geographic region, such as the mountains, ocean, forests, or streams, as the entire film seems to have been shot on the same few city blocks of the Multnomah Village neighborhood, which in the film is called Laurelwood.  This world hasn’t changed since the days of Eisenhower, throwing lavish attention at themselves as strong, upstanding citizens, while deriding anyone from outside their neighborhood who doesn’t meet their high moral standards.  This sneering communal judgment hits Meris right between the eyes, even after she gives up her Middle Eastern friendship, leaving her totally dependent on her bullying husband, not where you want to be when your self esteem level hits an all time low.  When a dinner party turns disastrous, Meris’s drunken ramblings send the film into catastrophic territory, which all but guarantees viewers will be squirming in their seats.  What follows will leave them spinning their heads in disgust, outraged at the turn of events, as Mitch cruelly ends the marriage to return to his high school sweetheart, whose holier than thou mother is Theresa Russell of all people, who like an attention seeking, leader-of-the-pack, cult parent somewhat fatalistically endorses this return to high school social status, as if this somehow makes everything right in the world, where she’s back in the limelight, literally stealing her daughter’s thunder every chance she gets, overprotecting her special little princess that she squeezes in a vice grip of Barbie perfection. 

You’d think the poor girl Meris had had enough and would take the first stage out of town, but instead she obsesses over her missing husband and gets a job in a candy shop where the film finally finds its outsider theme in the form of an outlandishly dissatisfied punk employee Trudy, Orianna Hermann, easily the best thing in the film, who finds that getting wasted is her solution for every problem.  Soon she’s got Meris hanging out with the punk girls whose Fuck the World attitude has her smiling and dancing in the streets, making fun of the straight crowd her husband hangs with, as they behave like overprotected suburbanites who never had to grow up and face reality.  Meris slides back and forth into self loathing, becoming more than a pathetic caricature of a woman who hates to look in the mirror, as she’s literally thrown her entire life away for a group of assholes that couldn’t care less.  But the more time we spend around Trudy, the healthier we feel, despite her persona of negativity and disgust, as she’s simply the most uplifting character in the film—whatever that’s worth.  The film itself can be god awful to watch, showing wretchedly bad taste, and is a bitter pill to swallow with bad indie music swirling around in all directions, but it cynically blasts the complacency of the overbearing middle class that sits around on their asses all day feeling good about themselves, where their brain activity has all but been turned off post high school.  In that respect, the film, through Trudy, rings loud and clear.  Unfortunately, the star of the show is Meris who has to undergo as much nonstop torture and personal humiliation as any von Trier actress, which will likely divide audiences.  Anyone who suggests this movie is crap would not be wrong, but it has a surprisingly ingrained subversive message.  Do not miss the scenes before the opening credits, however, as they set the stage for everything that follows, as this weird, off putting little drama is a scathing indictment of a morally vacuous yet self-satisfied American contentedness. 

The Descendants

THE DESCENDANTS                        B+                  

USA  (115 mi)  2011  ‘Scope  d:  Alexander Payne                  Official site

One of Payne’s better films, where the spaciousness of his canvas is particularly appealing, as the Hawaiian setting here is idyllic, certainly a change of pace from the rat race of our normal lives, where we should be so lucky to have these kinds of inheritance problems, but one wonders what the infatuation is for lifestyles of the super wealthy, which seems to be an American and European fascination at the moment while the reflective economies are in a terrible downturn - - see von Trier’s MELANCHOLIA (2011), Almodóvar’s THE SKIN I LIVE IN (2011), Assayas’s SUMMER HOURS (2008) or Woody Allen’s MIDNIGHT IN PARIS (2011).  Based on an adapted screenplay from a novel by native Hawaiian Kaui Hart Hemmings, who herself has a role as Clooney’s secretary, the story concerns the coexistence of natives and whites in modern day Hawaiian society, suggesting they bear a responsibility in deciding what to do with the original lands of the indigenous past while also cultivating a need for development in a rapidly changing modern society.  Apparently large amounts of land continue to be held in trusts that were set up more than a century ago by the families of Hawaiian royalty.  Under a law called the rule of perpetuities, individuals, as opposed to charitable organizations, have until a specific date to act upon these trusts.  This is a backdrop for the story of Matt King (George Clooney), the hapa-haole (half-white) heir of a prominent Hawaiian landowning family that married into 25,000 acres of unspoiled land 150 years ago that now stands to make a bundle if they agree to sell off their shares.  However, much of what makes Hawaii so uniquely gorgeous has disappeared beneath a blitz of high end housing development for more hotels, condominiums, and luxury resorts, the kind of thing that makes a few people very wealthy at the expense of the pristine beauty of the island.  Many of the same questions were raised by Olivier Assayas’s SUMMER HOURS, where the heirs of the French aristocracy were too busy in their impersonalized modern lives to concern themselves with their family or the nation’s legacy, forgetting how influenced they were in their own childhoods by their seemingly unlimited and unending cultural access.    

Payne has crafted an irreverent but very low key approach that follows flawed yet original characters, highlighted by Clooney’s beautifully understated performance, a guy that appears out of nowhere to suddenly take an interest in the family he’s otherwise neglected for his own business adventures through the years.  However he’s called into action due to the medical emergency of his wife who ends up in a coma from a boating accident.  When her condition is not expected to improve, he’s forced to confront his two daughters, Shailene Woodley as Alexandra and Amara Miller as Scottie, both offering spirited performances, showing unusual range of expression without falling into the typical family cliché’s.  King also has to contact the friends and extended family at the same time he’s considering what to do about the family trust.  His lifelong retreat behind the safety net of complacency is suddenly called into question, made even worse when his daughter reveals her mother was having an affair.  Like a house on fire, King has to decide what’s worth saving and what he has to let go.  Quiet and surprisingly tender, there’s a healthy dose of humor mixed with pathos wrapped up in the tragic circumstances, where the revelations slowly reveal themselves and only grow more poignant, becoming more personalized with the growth of the characters.  While it’s first and foremost a family drama, one can’t help but see the broader implications and how it reaches into the lives of all Hawaiian citizens.  King understands many resent his inability to connect to his indigenous past, yet he’s the one that stands to make millions from land that never actually belonged to him or his family, but was entrusted to a vision of an idealized Hawaiian future.    

  

With brief autobiographical narration from King, what’s intriguing about his character is that he continues to play someone who is himself still developing into the person he is becoming, changing skins, making room for adjustments, experiencing a myriad of emotions from anger, confusion, sadness, the loss of parental authority, to suddenly finding himself alone without a partner, where he has to come to terms with his wife’s betrayal of her own family, all told in a tone that mixes humor with heartache.  Payne carefully sprinkles the family with notable eccentrics, but also shows the serious family portraits that have been hanging on the walls for generations.  Raising questions about assimilation and cultural identity, all of the music in the film comes from Hawaiian artists, where one was even written by Liliuokalani, Hawaii’s last queen.  The director never intends to overwhelm the viewer and refuses to resort to stylistic tricks of the trade, but infuses knowledge with the setting, where the audience is treated to an overview of the family legacy, plush green cliffs with plenty of vegetation overlooking the white sands of an undeveloped beach, a place that has remained as is for literally thousands of years, a portrait of everlasting perfection.  The natural beauty is an interesting contrast to the pervasive sadness of the story, which features a woman dying, who’s already been declared brain dead and has left instructions to remove all life support.  Despite all the unique twists that make you think otherwise, this is a horribly downbeat story that has a sobering effect on everyone, a wake up call that suggests this could be anyone, that life is short, that we have an obligation to rethink our lives in the truest, most moral sense and reconnect with those that matter the most to us.  Fortune may be intertwined with fate, but the choices and direction of our lives still belongs to us and we should never betray that most precious gift.

Melancholia

MELANCHOLIA                                C                    

Denmark  Sweden  France  Germany  (135 mi)  2011  'Scope  d:  Lars von Trier

Don’t miss the opening ten minutes, a wordless slow-mo montage set to the Prelude orchestral music of Wagner’s opera Tristan und Isolde, seen in its entirety here:  Melancholia Prologue on YouTube (7:46), as it’s filled with the most dramatic shots of the film, all of which set the apocalyptic tone of gloom and doom which dominate this film, as an approaching star named Melancholia is veering toward the earth’s orbit, but scientists expect it to pass by without interference or harm.  Shot in ‘Scope with a mix of digital and 35 mm imagery by Manuel Alberto Claro, most all of it taking place at a single location, a mammoth estate in Västra Götaland County in Sweden that resembles the grounds of LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD (1961), a sign of the upper echelons of the aristocracy.  After an opening Prologue, the film is divided in two parts, each representing the state of mind of two sisters, Kristen Dunst as Justine and Charlotte Gainsbourg as Claire.  Justine arrives on the scene as the bride in her full wedding regalia with the groom in tow, both in the throes of love as they experience a comically absurd sequence where it’s near impossible for the driver to park a stretch limo.  This moment of levity is interrupted by the severity expressed from her late arrival where she’s apparently missed the first several hours of the world’s most expensive and elaborately planned wedding, by Udo Kier of course as the wedding planner, who after awhile refuses to even look at the bride as she’s completely ruined his wedding.  Justine can’t seem to focus and continually wanders off, throwing the timing off, forcing guests to continually wait, where Claire and her husband John, Kiefer Sutherland, who’s paying for it all, grow more irate by the minute, as they feel embarrassed by the apparent indifference of the bride.  Nonetheless, despite Claire’s continual interference, supposedly reminding her sister of her social obligations, Justine just never gets the hang of it, and her more casual air doesn’t match the growing mood of annoyance and frazzled nerves, especially from Justine’s unhappily separated parents, the equally carefree John Hurt dangling two women named Betty on his arm, and the contemptuous view of her domineering mother, Charlotte Rampling, who hates weddings in general and is not afraid to express her misanthropic views. 

The man in the middle of this apparent wedding from hell is Alexander Skarsgård as Michael, the groom, a perfectly charming and innocent young man who’s thrilled at the idea of being married to Justine, though, as the night goes on, he learns he really doesn’t know her at all.  When the father of the groom, Stellan Skarsgård, makes a perfectly odious speech about his preference between his son’s happiness and his own business success, he quite naturally chooses the success of his business, which simply stakes his claim as the biggest egoist in the room.  There’s plenty of behind the scenes nastiness, especially when Justine has had enough and simply tells off the father-in-law that he’s an imbecile whose arrogance is despicable, where he and his family, again with the groom in tow, quickly exit the premises.  One guesses this may all blow over by the morning, but it doesn’t, as the sisters, for days, weeks, or even months afterwards, continue to inhabit the immense grounds, which is located on a golf course.  Never once throughout this ordeal is anyone ever seen actually playing golf at this ultra exclusive country estate.  Only afterwards is there a suggestion that Justine suffers from depression, which really isn’t remotely suggested during the wedding party itself, where instead the idea of a perfect day where she's supposed to be happy is literally forced upon her, leaving her bewildered and in a state of confusion and mixed emotions, where in the aftermath she simply lies around unable to get out of bed.  Sometime later, as the film switches to the other sister, with the mysterious planet moving ever closer, Claire is openly suspicious about the possibilities of what could happen when Melancholia passes near the earth.  John, however, considers himself something of a science expert, who’s continually looking up at the star in his telescope, sharing the moment with his young son, and can barely contain his enthusiasm at this priceless moment, knowing all scientific experts have predicted the star will simply pass by, allowing an unheard of opportunity for skywatchers.   

The mood in the second segment grows more broodingly intense, as Claire becomes more unsettled at the thought of potential doom, despite her husband’s calming speeches to the contrary, she still has her suspicions, made all the more ominous by the abnormal behavior of animals, especially their horses that won’t sit still in their stalls, whinnying and remaining restlessly agitated throughout the day and night.  While Claire grows more hysterical, especially for the life of her son, it’s Justine that develops a calmly fatalistic attitude, sensing the end is near, claiming she knows life in the universe exists only on earth and it’s about to come to an end where no one will notice its absence.  Her ease in accepting impending doom is in stark contrast to her panic ridden sister, where the sisters seem to represent opposite ends of the distressed mood spectrum, but it’s all displayed with heightened melodrama that reeks of excess, especially from Gainsbourg, where the director continues to flood the theater with the neverending sounds of Wagner, a monotonously repetitive theme of gloom that drives the point home with the subtlety of a sledgehammer, as we’ve obviously gotten the point, but is that all there is?  Is this a one-note drama?  All we ever see are the few lives that remain on these massive grounds, where the spacious emptiness is substantial, as all the other people in the world are missing, as no one else is ever seen, as if these are the last humans on earth.  There is no radio, television, Internet news, phone calls, no sirens blaring, nothing to connect these life forms to anyone else on earth, and all this is before anything happens.  Dunst, who won the Best Actress Award at Cannes is good, but nothing special, where the ominous atmospheric mood is substantial, as the director contemplates a scenario where the human race and planet earth are on the verge of collapse from a mysteriously off course star that appears out of nowhere.  Obviously anything’s possible, but this is a bewildering climax that is overly hyped and pre-ordained from the opening prologue, so there’s little mounting tension or suspense.  Judging from the blasé evidence of life shown in the two or so hours onscreen, there is little sustained human drama that makes this feel in any way memorable.   

Applause

APPLAUSE                                  B                     

Denmark  (85 mi)  2009  ‘Scope  d:  Martin Zandvliet

The spirit of Applause echoes films from the late 60s and 70s.  Indeed I am in search of the emotional drama you found in films back then.  Applause may also seem like it’s from a different time — a cinematic tradition centered on the human soul and on acting.

For me Applause is about betrayal.  About how we as human beings betray the ones closest to us, when we ourselves have been betrayed.  About having difficulties trusting other people and judging what is right and wrong. About the complexity of longing for something better. About reacting as extremely egocentric or extremely helpful, about varying between despondency/discouragement and spite. All in the hope of being seen, heard, and loved.   

— Martin P. Zandvliet 

In a surreal coincidence, on the day of actress Elizabeth Taylor's death, the movie seen that night was this Danish film featuring a bravura performance from one of Denmark's leading actresses, Paprika Sheen, where the film follows her shattered and deteriorating marriage while at the same time offers glimpses of various segments from her actual 2008 Copenhagen Theatre onstage performance as Martha in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966), a role that epitomizes what’s legendary about both Ms. Taylor, who was incredibly only 33 when she played the role, and Ms. Steen who is a more mature 45.  The role is so bruisingly iconic in the dramatic repertoire that playing the part is considered a rite of passage in one’s career, as is Hamlet or King Lear for men.  With tributes to John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands listed in the end credits, what stands out is the desperately driven, all-in attitude of Steen’s performance, which mirrors Rowlands’ vital need to be loved in A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE (1974), especially the scenes with her two children, the older of which, Otto Rieks as William, is her own son.  When she bounds across the floor wearing her Viking helmet declaring she is Eric the Red, charging towards her sons who have appropriately been given giant swords and shields, she lovingly creates an imaginary world second to none.  How could any kid resist, except - - they do, thinking perhaps their mother is a little bit crazy.  She pounces on this thought, exclaiming of course she’s crazy.  “Isn’t it cool to have a crazy mother?”  They sheepishly are forced to agree with her before she leaps up declaring “I’m Eric the Red again!”

Steen is a product of the Dogme movement, the only actress to work in each of the initial three productions, THE CELEBRATION (1998), THE IDIOTS (1998), and MIFUNE (1999).  Needless to say, Steen as Thea is a drama queen in the best sense of the word, which means there’s not a moment in her life when she’s not acting, as she lives for the intensity of every moment, which not everyone can stand, including her divorced husband Christian (Michael Falch), who has custody of both sons, and who has long ago tired of her theatrical outbursts.  Thea gave away her rights to custody during an extended alcoholic binge when her behavior towards her children was worse than intolerable.  Fortunately they are still young enough that they may barely have any scars or fresh recollections.  Christian, on the other hand, is unforgiving, especially when Thea announces her interest in reestablishing custody rights.  Visits are fine, when planned and mutually agreed to ahead of time, but nothing spontaneous or improvisational, which is the life blood of her craft, namely living.  She spurts out insults about how he’s turned them into little Toys R Us Nazi children, how she barely recognizes her imprint in their personalities any more.  From her perspective, they may as well be suffering from the effects of an impersonal and demoralizing foster care system.  As Christian, one assumes, is a doctor, and his new wife a psychiatrist, Thea blurts out how the entire medical establishment has conspired against her.  The dark humor used throughout the film continually covers up the aches of loneliness and personal torment, where what must hurt most of all is having no one to blame more than herself.  That’s the real curse, which feels like a stab in the heart. 

A continuing theme of the film is her long walk from the stage to her dressing room, always helped by her young dresser (Malou Reymann) that she’s always trying to fire for the crime of being young, yet she continually shows up in exactly the same place, as pretty and perky as ever, which really must disgust the star of the show, who sulks endlessly about her “dog skin” face, loathing the body that has seemingly turned on her with age as she gulps down another shot of bourbon before she stalks down the hall to take her rightful place onstage in the boozing and brawling of Edward Albee’s play.  Thea has the sad habit of reappearing in bars, frequenting the old stomping grounds even as she refrains from taking a drink anymore, seen bored to tears at an AA meeting where she’s forced to actually have to listen to the sad plight of others.  It’s in a bar that she meets Tom from Berlin, Shanti Roney, a guy with a sick smile plastered to his face that she orders him to wipe off when they first meet, which pretty much describes their sick affair together, connected by neverending wounds of anguish and pain.  Nothing ever goes the way it’s planned, as Thea hurls herself headfirst into her new future with all the gusto and incoherence that defined her complicated past.  “I hate ordinary people,” she bellows, but realizes in the same breath that she must learn to live among them, never actually trusting any of them, as if they were a strange breed of mutants, yet continuously it falls back upon her own shoulders and the burden she must bear.  It has all come to this, as she’s seen staring at herself in the mirror, smacking her lips with a new sheen of lipstick.  There is no one left to blame, all the bridges behind have been burned, leaving her alone once more standing on that precipice, about the take the first baby steps of a new beginning.  With her, it’s always opening night.       

Secret Sunshine

SECRET SUNSHINE (Milyang)                                  A-                   

South Korea  (142 mi)  2007  ‘Scope  d:  Lee Chang-dong

Premiering at Cannes in 2007, nominated for a Foreign Language Academy Award in 2008, it took nearly 4 years before the film opened in a major U.S. city, distributed by IFC, and when it did, it was shown on HD Video on a small screen, similar to watching it at home, as the size is reduced even further for the ‘Scope aspect ratio, so the top and bottom of the screen were empty.  As to why it took so long for the film to arrive, one remains clueless, as it’s clear this is a formidable talent with unique filmmaking credentials.  According to his bio at IMDb See full bio, Lee Chang-dong was born in Daegu, considered the most right wing city in South Korea, and was a high school teacher and acclaimed novelist before turning to cinema, directing his first film at the age of 43, but also writing all of his own films.  He also worked as his nation’s Minister of Culture for several years between OASIS (2002) and the release of this film, bringing a certain maturity level to his films, similar to French director Claire Denis who also got her start at the age of 40, but also contributing a dense, novelistic style that is uniquely his own.  OASIS is unlike any other film I’ve ever seen, as it examines crass societal prejudice through one of the most improbable and disturbing love affairs ever captured on film, where the two lead characters are so mentally and physically challenged that it’s difficult to even watch them onscreen.  The audience has no choice except to adjust their perceptions to the subject matter.  This film is on more familiar turf, a mother’s grief from a sudden and unexpected loss of her child who is killed in a kidnapping for ransom scheme gone wrong, but it’s just as maddening and heartbreaking, as it takes her on a strange and baffling odyssey to explore possible religious and spiritual avenues for her insurmountable pain.  The ease with which this director mixes near slapstick comedy side by side with searing tragedy, while also making astute social comment, is what separates him from the rest, as his range is simply unsurpassed.

Lee never makes it easy for us, nor does he spell things out for us, as he instead takes us on Jeon Do-yeon’s novelesque journey (winner of Best Actress at Cannes), a widow who is moving with her young son to the small town of her recently deceased husband, the subject of poisonous family rumors which has caused her to leave her family behind, which begins with her car breaking down just outside of Milyang, which in Chinese means “Secret Sunshine,” where a hotshot mechanic Song Kang-ho cheerfully welcomes her to the city.  Slowly she acclimates herself to life in a small town, where school busses have flowers and optimistic slogans painted on them and where everyone has soon heard about her arrival.  She immediately joins a women’s social circle, even as she has little in common with these other women who oftentimes make unflattering comments about her behind her back, but this is what’s done as she assumes a social standing as a piano instructor.  It’s interesting to see women drink too much in public as they have a vicious sense of humor and seem to enjoy leaving their husbands behind.  Their frivolity recalls the surreal final scene of dancing housewives in Bong Joon-ho’s audacious psychological thriller MOTHER (2009).  Somewhat shockingly, this film turns into a heartbreaking missing child saga, where the terrifying jolt of losing her child becomes a stark everyday reality, where her inconsolable anguish leads her to seek comfort in the refuge of Christianity, where her physical expression of grief in the church is unforgettable, expertly shot by the way where in a distant shot that lasts for nearly a minute we only hear the sounds of wailing in the congregation before a close up reveals the source, where smiles just a few minutes ago have led to a flood of tears.  Song Kang-ho accompanies her in her religious quest, always a bit late and usually appearing just outside the frame, but he always seems to be there, standing up for her when no one else will, especially when her dysfunctional family comes to her son’s funeral and tries to label her damaged goods.  When Jeon was initially blackmailed and had no one else to turn to, there’s a hauntingly empty scene where she pays him a visit at his garage at night where she stands outside gazing in at him where he’s alone, drinking heavily, and singing karaoke at the top of his lungs. 

Jeon’s Christian transformation is one for the ages, as she soon becomes the poster child for a born again Christian, assimilating the message and the speech, becoming one of God’s ambassadors on earth spreading the message.  She goes to meetings, speaks with the Reverend, joins new social circles, and sings joyous religious songs outside the commuter train stations as bystanders walk by.  The film paints an excellent portrait of Korean Christianity, which is always led by that everpresent cheerful smile, and where they have a ready answer for all of the nation’s social ills.  This leads to that transcending moment when she’s ready to go to prison to forgive the man who murdered her child.  There have been other similar determinant prison sequences, Bresson’s PICKPOCKET (1959) and Kurosawa’s HIGH AND LOW (1963) come to mind, which feature moments of transcendence.  But this is something different altogether and is eerie and creepy at the same time, as the prisoner has also found comfort in the salvation of Jesus Christ, so her forgiveness is not really necessary, as he’s already squared it with a higher power.  Where does this leave her? - - devastated and crushed, where this turns into a psychologically tormenting grief and anguish of Dostoevskian proportion.  Her ultimate clash with religion reaches NASHVILLE (1975) proportions in one of the most perfectly written sequences in the film when she inserts a pop song into an amplified Christian outdoor rally during the middle of a sermon (Kim Chu Ja singing “Gu Jit Mal”).  She is rattled with guilt for the inner rage she feels, and for which she can find no comfort or relief, feeling scarred and betrayed for life, as she’s really done nothing wrong, yet she’s condemned to eternal punishment without ever committing a crime.  What God, who oversees all things, could allow this to happen?  And where is her salvation?  What is her road to redemption?  She travels into that BREAKING THE WAVES (1996) territory, which is really a descent into human depravity, and it is from this haunting and punishing emptiness that she needs to find herself, from some horrible dark abyss, void of human virtue, a laceratingly lonely and empty place, the cavernous depression of her soul, where she needs to somehow crawl out alive and discover what it means to live again.