Sunday 6 May 2012

Film Shorts: Melancholia (2011)

This handsome film opens with a wondrous series of slow motion tableaux, but is bogged down quickly afterwards by a long set piece set at the most fractious wedding reception ever caught on celluloid. 

Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg play polar opposite sisters, Dunst the melancholic, Gainsbourg the neurotic,and neither given to doing anything cheerily or with any great velocity. John Hurt, Keifer Sutherland and Alexander SkarsgÄrd lend weight but not likeability to the opening act. The second part of the movie takes an apocalyptic turn and, ironically, improves in mood, but the whole thing was immeasurably enhanced, I found, by watching at 1.5x speed on the Blu Ray player. I love how technology puts power in the hands of the viewer like that.