In Contention

Tag: Melancholia

  • Telluride guessing game

    (UPDATED: 8/29)

    Now that the Toronto and Venice line-ups have been unveiled (though we have a few more Toronto announcements to come), I figured I’d take a few stabs at sussing out the Telluride crop this year. I haven’t been a good journalist and called around or anything. Just spinning my wheels.

    One studio that always has a big presence at Telluride is Sony Pictures Classics, and this year, honchos Michael Barker and Tom Bernard have a full plate once again. Of that stable, David Cronenberg’s “A Dangerous Method” is hitting both Venice and Toronto. It’s very possible, then, that it will kick things off in the Rockies.

    Roman Polanski’s “Carnage,” meanwhile, was announced as a Venice play this morning. It would be easy enough for the team to bring the film there and not worry about getting the filmmaker in town (seeing as he can’t legally step foot in the country), saving his press run for Venice. (7/28 UPDATE: The film has been set for New York fest, so it seems unlikely we’ll see it in Telluride.)

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  • Three days left to catch ‘Melancholia’ in LA

    I should really have drawn attention to this earlier, but as Jeff Wells pointed out on Hollywood Elsewhere, Lars von Trier’s Cannes hit “Melancholia” began a one-week, once-a-day screening run at Los Angeles’ out-of-the-way Laemmle Fallbrook 7 theatre on Friday — a handy opportunity for local film buffs with free afternoons to sneak a look at the film months ahead of its November 11 release in the US. (Most European viewers haven’t quite so long to wait.)

    As you can gather from my enthusiastic Cannes review of the film, it’s worth getting impatient for. One of von Trier’s most elegant and elegiac works — the silly controversy over his unwise Nazi-related comments at the festival is a red herring that doesn’t reflect remotely on the surprisingly subdued film — it showcases the man in full command of his formal powers, as well as a fascinating ensemble, the pleasures of which extend beyond Kirsten Dunst’s fairly rewarded performance.

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  • CANNES: ‘Tree of Life’ wins Palme d’Or, Dunst takes Best Actress

    And so it came to pass that the pre-festival bookies’ odds were on the money. The most talked-about film at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life,” was handed the Palme d’Or by Robert De Niro’s jury — a major vindication for a film that has been labelled both a masterpiece and a failure by duelling factions of critics on the Croisette.

    Malick, to the surprise of precisely nobody, did not pitch up to the ceremony, though I imagine he’s feeling somewhat relieved. However it performs outside the insular festival environment, his film’s cultural landmark status has been sealed: armed with this prestigious bit of hardware, Fox Searchlight can set about readying the film for the US awards season, though approval from more mainstream bodies could yet be an uphill battle.

    “The Tree of Life” isn’t the film I would have picked for the Palme by a long shot — as I wrote in my review, I think it’s an intermittently stunning work that ultimately overreaches, never marrying its three disparate sections — but it’s not an unintelligent pick: De Niro and his fellow jurors have opted for the title that looks likely to have the longest shelf-life in popular culture. In that respect, it’s a preferable choice to the film widely viewed as the favorite going into the awards tonight, Aki Kaurismäki’s charming but wafer-thin comedy “Le Havre” — which, in the evening’s most surprising turn, won not a single prize.

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  • CANNES: What will win… and what should

    It’s a funny thing. For 10 days at Cannes, the Croisette hums with stimulating discussion and debate about movies; for the final two, all that chatter dissolves into a single blunt question: “What will win the Palme d’Or?” It’s a little like the Oscars, except without the initial stage of stimulating discussion and debate about movies. Let’s do it.

    On the one hand, I kind of want the beautiful, punishing 160-minute anti-procedural epic of Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s “Once Upon a Time in Anatolia” to win, since there’s £140 waiting for me in London if it does. (Gamble responsibly, kids.) On the other, I can make more convincing cases for a number of titles. Unlike last year, when it was easy to single out “Uncle Boonmee” and “Of Gods and Men” for the top two spots, this year’s lineup has been higher in terms of median quality, as well as more contentious — which allows for a wider range of hypothetical jury-room arguments.

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  • OSCAR TALK: Ep. 56 — Special Edition! — Cannes so far, ‘Tree of Life,’ Von Trier, taking the 2011 awards pulse

    Oscar TalkWelcome to Oscar Talk.

    In case you’re new to the site and/or the podcast, Oscar Talk is a weekly kudocast, your one-stop awards chat shop between yours truly and Anne Thompson of Thompson on Hollywood. The podcast is weekly, every Friday throughout the season, charting the ups and downs of contenders along the way. Plenty of things change en route to Oscar’s stage and we’re here to address it all as it unfolds.

    It has been nearly three months since we last got on the horn to talk the film wards landscape. We promised another dip during Cannes, so here we are. Today Anne and I are joined by Guy Lodge as the two of them have been working the Croisette all week. Let’s see what’s on the docket today…

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  • How do you solve a problem like Von Trier?

    It couldn’t last. As the closing credits began rolling on Wednesday morning’s 8.30am Cannes press screening of “Melancholia,” Lars Von Trier’s elegant rumination on anxiety, the apocalypse and all those other swell things, I was stunned by how civil the atmosphere in the vast Lumiere theater was.

    Enthusiastic applause greeted the film — more surprisingly, so did a distinct absence of boos. Soaking up the post-screening chatter in the foyer, I didn’t once hear the words “misogynist,” “perverted” or “clitoridectomy,” but I did pick up a bushel apiece of “moving” and “beautiful.” A number of critics disliked it, of course, but it rather seemed as if Lars Von Trier had pulled off the (for him) impossible: a film that touched many and upset no one.

    And then came this.

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  • Persona non whateva

    Guy is on his way to a screening of Nicolas Winding Refn’s “Drive” at Cannes right now, but he will eventually get around to addressing Lars Von Trier’s spanking by the festival, which now considers him persona non grata.

    In the meantime, however, I’ll align myself with this statement from David Poland’s assessment:

    Is von Trier an ass at times? Absolutely. Aggressive provocateur? Absolutely.

    But he is one of the few high profile filmmakers who pushes audiences to Think. You can hate what he makes, but you can’t deny that he is skilled and alive with ideas. Who will stand for this in a homogenized, instant-news-cycle culture if Film Critics and Festivals will not?

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  • REVIEW: “Melancholia” (***1/2)

    Cannes Film Festival

    It’s the end of the world as we know it, and Lars von Trier feels fine. Well, not “fine,” exactly: he feels as despairing and sceptical and faithless as he usually does, but that’s clearly where he’s comfortable, and where his creative faculties thrive most actively.

    They’re certainly in rude health in “Melancholia,” a ravishing arthouse blockbuster that extends the self-therapy he began in 2009’s bracingly unhinged horror film “Antichrist,” but with more thematic cohesion and tonal restraint. The sensation-hungry, who label any new von Trier film ‘controversial’ before seeing a shred of footage, will likely be disappointed — that is, if they’re not appeased by some tame shots of Kirsten Dunst rutting on a golf course. (Luckily for them, as if realizing the deficit, the director compensated with some trademark shenanigans at the press conference.)

    For the rest of von Trier’s fans, however, the film’s lack of overt audience-baiting serves to place his formal gifts in starker relief. A subdued, even elegant, vision of the apocalypse that begins as a waking dream and continues in an actuality no less feverish, “Melancholia” represents the natural culmination of the depressive doubt in self and society that has needled most of von Trier’s features. As a statement on the spiritual bankruptcy of the human race, it may well prove unfurtherable: after destroying the world we live in — a spoiler only to the most tone-deaf of viewers, I assure you — where does the man have left to go?

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  • CANNES CHECK: ‘Melancholia’

    The director: Lars von Trier (Denmark)

    The talent: After the lonesome two-hander that was “Antichrist,” von Trier is back to the all-star ensemble form of “Dogville” — and an eclectic ensemble at that. Taking on the traditionally punishing duties of von Trier’s female lead (though the man maintains she got off lightly) is Kirsten Dunst. Previous von Trier alumni in the cast include Charlotte Gainsbourg, John Hurt and Stellan Skarsgård, while Charlotte Rampling, Skarsgård’s son Alexander and, most unexpectedly, Kiefer Sutherland join in the fun. (Plus, Udo Kier is credited as “Wedding planner,” which sounds like very good value indeed.) Below the line, the most important thing to note is the switch from von Trier’s regular DP Anthony Dod Mantle to the less familiar Manuel Alberto Claro (“Videocracy”).

    The pitch: The film’s official one-line synopsis may well be one of the most brazenly off-balance I’ve ever read, so I see no need to paraphrase: “Two sisters find their relationship challenged as a nearby planet threatens to collide into the Earth.” (Well, yes — planetary collisions have a way of complicating things.)

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  • ‘Melancholia’ poster

    One of the mostly eagerly awaited films of next month’s Cannes Film Festival, Lars von Trier’s latest has just unveiled an international one-sheet — and while it’s less than illuminating, employing only a single (lovely) still we’ve already seen amid an ocean of white space, I’m happy for this one to play coy. Meanwhile, I suspect the wedding-invitation look is intentional. (On a side note, I’m amused by the number of outlets already labelling the film “controversial” before we’ve even laid on eyes on it. At this point, von Trier could do a shot-for-shot remake of “The King’s Speech” and still get the fainthearts quivering ahead of time.) Full poster, courtesy of the film’s website, after the cut.

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  • Cannes competition includes Malick, Almodóvar, von Trier

    After weeks of speculation, this year’s Cannes lineup was unveiled in spectacularly long-winded fashion by fest director Thierry Frémaux this morning. (French TV networks clearly got so bored with his sidebar discussions on each title he announced that they helpfully cut to commercial halfway through the press conference.)

    Anyway, the speculation was largely borne out — most of the names you expected to see here are present and correct, including such Cannes regulars as Pedro Almodóvar, Lars von Trier, Nuri Bilge Ceylan and the Dardenne brothers.

    Meanwhile, the question on whether or not Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life” would play in competition has been answered in the affirmative. Malick’s inclusion makes this to second Cannes competition slate in a row to feature only one American filmmaker, though it’s something of an upgrade from from last year’s Doug Liman head-scratcher.

    [More thoughts, and the full lineup, after the cut.]

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  • ‘Melancholia’ trailer

    I’m continuing my 2011 resolution of not watching trailers for films I’m really looking forward to, but for the less ascetic among you, here’s our first glimpse of Lars von Trier’s latest, which will doubtless turn up in next month’s Cannes lineup. As many of you know, I’m always in the tank for von Trier — I was firmly on the “pro” side of the “Antichrist” debate two years ago — and with that fascinatingly eclectic cast on board, including a second go-round for Charlotte Gainsbourg, I scarcely need to see any footage to put this atop my “most anticipated” list. Click on the image below to watch it at the film’s official website, or check out the embed after the jump.

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