So I saw Melancholia. The result? I have now seen four Lars von Trier movies in the theatre and hated each one. I’ll let Dennis Cooper provide my reason for disliking him:
I think some of his early films are kind of interesting. The Kingdom was okay. But it literally took all my strength not to rip the fucking movie screen down at the end of ‘Dancer in the Dark.’ It took all my strength not to smash my TV into garbage watching ‘Dogville.’ I like artists who shake things up and piss people off and create a lot of weird energy good or bad. But to me von Trier is a condescending, ham-fisted, moralistic, cheesy, sadistic, self-satisfied filmmaker who’s infuriating not because he’s challenging or confrontational but because he’s a stupid, obvious, predictable, simpleminded bore. (From here)
The only thing I can say about it that I liked was that I got to stare at Charlotte Gainsbourg’s face for awhile, and man, is that woman an amazing actress. Also, the planet smashing scenes were pretty neat.
