Two Strange Movies

So, thanks to Lana, I recently watched two movies that I would never have seen on my own. I liked one of them quite a lot and one not so much, but I'm glad Lana urged me out of my comfort zone on these.

Movie 1: The Lobster, 2015. Directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. Stars Colin Farrell and Rachel Wiesz. This is an absolutely absurd film about an SF dystopia. If you want to know the details of the plot, you can find it on Wikipedia. I won't repeat it. Basically, in the world of this movie, it is unacceptable to be single. Single people are taken to a hotel where they are given 45 days to find a partner, or they will be turned into an animal. They get to chose the animal, and Collin Farrell's character choses a lobster.

Farrell doesn't really want to become a lobster, though, so he strives to find a relationship. For a relationship to work in this world, it requires that the two individuals share some trait. One couple gets together because they both have nose bleeds, for example (although the man is faking it).

Farrell's character tries to start a relationship with a very cruel woman but cannot carry off faking his own cruelty. He flees the hotel and runs into a bunch of "loners" in the woods. Farrell's character is short sighted and he meets a loner woman (Weisz) who is also short sighted. However, the loners will not allow relationships so they have to hide their attraction to each other.

Throughout the whole movie, every character's dialogue and actions are delivered almost entirely deadpan. This adds to the absurdity of the situation. As with most artsy movies, the ending is left open-ended. I have to say, though, that I enjoyed this movie and was particularly interested in the dystopian world it envisions. I wouldn't mind reading a book that gave more detail about the world but apparently there isn't one.

Movie 2: Melancholia, 2011. Directed by Lars Von Trier. Stars Kirsten Dunst and Keifer Sutherland, among many other fairly big names. This is really a movie about depression. The big metaphor in the film is of a rogue planet named "Melancholia," which has entered our solar system and is supposed to swing close past earth. However, the first part of the movie barely touches on the planet.

Dunst's character is Justine. The movie starts on her wedding day. She and her husband are late to their wedding reception, but at first everything seems wonderful and they seem much in love. Gradually, the reception becomes a train wreck as Justine's depression comes fully into play. Her father is a dilettante and lush, her mother a vicious hag. Her sister, Claire, has some anxiety issues of her own but is generally trying to keep things together. Claire's husband, John (Sutherland) doesn't have much tolerance for Justine or her mother, but does have genuine affection for his wife and son. If you want to know more details of the plot you can find it here.

Although the acting is good, I found the first part of the movie to be pretty boring. I didn't really like any of the characters, particularly Justine. I sympathized with her depression initially, but when she began to behave in deliberately cruel ways I lost that sympathy.

The second half of the movie focuses more on Claire, Justine's sister, but it also brings to the forefront the plot with the planet Melancholia. Claire has heard that the planet will crash into Earth, while her husband, John, insists that it will only pass close by. This was interesting to me, and the visuals of Melancholia growing in the sky were great. My next couple of paragraphs are going to reveal the ending, so if you don't want spoilers you shouldn't read on. However, the beginning of the movie essentially reveals the ending anyway in a slow motion series of beautiful, digitally produced artistic images.

It turns out that John is wrong. The planet is going to crash into Earth. John cannot handle this and kills himself, abandoning his wife and child. This seemed completely out of character to me. Claire is left, panic stricken, to take care of her son. Justine is also there and now the movie tries to make Justine into the strong one. It doesn't work because Justine continues to exhibit cruelty and her solution to dealing with the impending destruction of earth is lie to the child about a "magic cave" that they can build to save them. The very end shows Justine, Claire, and the boy inside a haphazard construction of cut poles as Melancholia hits Earth.

Although I don't consider the time spent watching this movie to be a waste, as is sometimes the case with movies, I definitely did not like the movie. I thought it was well filmed and well acted but it was way too long, tried to make heroes of characters who were not heroes and tried to make cowards of characters who were not cowards. In a movie, or a book, the viewer or reader has to get to know the characters. It's a delicate thing to keep those characters true to the way they've been developed while still presenting new sides to them, but it is crucial. This movie didn't quite achieve that, in my opinion.