Many 2011 movies in this post, including Melacholia, Hugo, and Take Shelter. There will be many many more movies from 2011 that you can expect in the coming posts, because I certainly had a lot to watch at this point to make sure I can do a good top movies of 2011 list. This post has some movies that are highly likely to appear on that list. Included in this post are discussions of depression, obsession, and madness, but also two works that celebrate old masters of filmmaking.
Melancholia (Lars von Trier, Denmark, 2011): When someone is depressed about something, a lot of people would likely reply to them by saying, "don't worry, it's not the end of the world." Well in Melancholia Kirsten Dunst is depressed and it actually is the end of the world. Dunst plays Justine, a woman who is going through serious clinical depression on what is supposed to be for most people "the happiest day of their life," her wedding. That's the first half of the film. The second half then is after that failed wedding, and about a planet that is about to crash into Earth and end the world. We first see how Justine's depressions ruins a day that should have been an amazing day and then in the second half we see how Justine's depression enables her to be the only sane person while everyone else who is supposedly "sane" is having a mental breakdown. This isn't a movie about the end of the world, but it's a movie about depression. It's an experience of depression that gives us multiple angles that does not just show the main character wallowing in misery. Dunst gives a great performance that shows a side of depression rarely seen in film.
Much of this film is based on von Trier's own experiences with depression and that is very evident in the honest, real, and sympathetic depiction of depression. The direction by von Trier and the performance by Dunst depicts a depression that is not just sadness all the time, but a person who has no focus, no desire for happiness, and a person whose depression confirms their own depression. The second half of the film also depicts a part of depression that seems like it could only have been written by someone who has experienced depression. Depression is normally seen as odd behavior that fits outside the norms of our culture, but the second half of the movie speaks to the fact that many times being outside the norm can be beneficial. Is the movie saying that depression is a good thing? I don't think so. The movie is saying that being depressed is not always something to be depressed about and that people going through depression are real people who are strong in their own way. The planet of Melancholia itself is also certainly metaphorical for the way sadness and depression can creep up on people from behind the happiness (the sun) and crash into your world.
The intricacies of depression created by von Trier in this film are certainly largely due to the fact that von Trier based much of the film on his own experience, but von Trier is also a very talented filmmaker who knows how to create images that are bombastic and affecting. The prologue of the film shows Earth getting destroyed to take away any suspense the audience might have about the planet crashing into Earth. Because of that beautiful and amazing prologue filled with slow motion metaphorical shots of the world getting destroyed, the audience will focus on the state of mind of the characters instead of the plot. Melancholia also represents some of the best von Trier has to offer on an aesthetic level. Much of the film, especially the wedding scenes, are shot with handheld camera with many jump cuts a la Godard, but there are also shots of immense beauty that seem to have come straight out of a painting. These aren't strictly aesthetic decisions either, the two types of shots reflect Justine's state of mind. The handheld shots represent Justine when she has no focus and no sense of place, but when the world starts getting destroyed, everything feels like calm and how it's supposed to feel and that is all shot with formal composition in mind. Is this film metaphorical or is it literal? It doesn't matter because it works in every way. Using his state of mind, and his filmmaking talent, von Trier has crafted a movie that will forever be discussed as one of his best and also one that will always be discussed as one of the best films about depression.
Grade: A
Take Shelter (Jeff Nichols, USA, 2011): Let's say you live in a Gulf state and the news media reports that a category five hurricane is about to hit shores any day now. The media says that the storm will destroy houses, take lives, and cost billions of dollars in damage. Life will never be the same after this storm. You will probably be scared, you will worry, and you will go crazy trying to prepare for this impending doom. The hurricane finally lands on shore and it ends up being only a category one hurricane that causes minor damage. Disaster was averted. Now if one of those people were to think back about those last few days, I bet that person would think that the time spent worrying about the hurricane and the disaster that was to strike was probably pretty intense on its own and probably even worse than the hurricane that ended up hitting. This situation has probably happened for many living in the gulf states, and Take Shelter is basically about that same phenomenon put to a more extreme scenario: when the process and anticipation of disaster can itself be a disaster. This film is extremely brilliant with the way it shows a character filled with obsession, similar to Richard Dreyfuss in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and shows the effects that obsession and worry has on his relationship with his wife and his family.
The storm in this movie that Michael Shannon's character sees in his dreams and visions can certainly be a metaphor for a wide variety of ills and crises that have taken place and are probably about to take place in our world today. There is always impending doom whether we know it or not, and in this movie Shannon's character knows it and it drives him mad. Part of this movie is also a deep study of mental illness. Many directors, and most European directors probably, would have taken this story and really gone after the metaphorical stuff, but Nichols focuses a great amount on the realistic consequences for a person undergoing such a mental crisis. Shannon's character undergoes therapy and checks out books on psychology. Take Shelter is that rare realistic but metaphorical tale but also incredibly suspenseful and filled with tension. This is also film that relies heavily on the lead performances, and both Shannon and Chastain nail their performances. Shannon has a very showy role as a madman, but since he is one of the best actors in America he completely nails it as usual and has one of the best performances of the year. Chastain on the other hand has a performance that's just as important as Shannon's. Her performance as the wife who must respond to her husbands possible madness balances the fine line between unrealistic and unsympathetic. The performances of Shannon and Chastain as well as the natural direction by Nichols elevate the script to make a truly great American movie.
Grade: B+
Much of the time in the latter part of the movie is spent with present day Allen and him explaining his process a bit. To me, that part was probably the most fascinating. Seeing the typewriter that he used for every single one of his films, and the way he cuts and staples parts of old drafts with new drafts is completely Woody Allen in the best possible way. There is also some footage of Allen directing You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger and in that very brief footage we see Allen's very passive directing of actors. He says his script is just a blueprint, and that the actors can change the dialogue any way they wish if it sounds natural. After seeing some of that footage I really wished we could see more of how Allen directs. Allen seems to be a hard man to crack open in interviews, so I don't blame Weide for this as much, but I do wish we also learned about why Allen really makes movies and what his ambitions are when he writes or directs a movie. He says that he wants to make a great movie, and so he's trying to make a lot of movies so the chances are higher than one of them is great. But that answer is a bit unsatisfactory, because I am sure there is more he has to say regarding what he thinks about his movies and what he hopes he can do as a writer and director. At the same time, it is pure joy to see Allen talking. He is a man that will never ever not be fascinating. This is a must watch for fans of Allen.
Grade: B
Hugo (Martin Scorsese, USA, 2011): Martin Scorsese grew up as an asthmatic kid who was not allowed to go outside and play, so instead he spent his days watching movies on television. In Scorsese's latest film, Hugo, the eponymous main character lives inside a train station by himself, and inside that train station he discovers a great secret about movies. The discovery of the magic of film is an important theme in Hugo, as we see Hugo and his lady friend played by Chloe Moretz discover movies and how important they can be to people. Scorsese is one of the worlds most foremost film directors and also film historians. He is a man who discovered movies at an early age and aimed to create what he saw on screen. He not only achieved that, but he did one better by making films that were completely original and distinct from all the influences Scorsese had. The genre of this movie may be shocking to most fans of Scorsese, because technically it is a kids movie, but the movie is one of Scorsese's most personal films. It is a movie that celebrates the dreams and magic that machinery can create.
A large part of the film is centered on George Melies, probably the first person who took cinema and created it into what it is today, complete with a narrative and special effects. There have been many films this year that were about the celebration of the past, also known as nostalgia, and many have included Hugo in that category. To an extent it is a nostalgic film, but only in a minor way. There are a few scenes that are about the lost films of Melies and how important film archives are, which goes hand-in-hand with Scorsese's real life activities with his own film preservation group The Film Foundation. But overall this is a film that is about the timelessness of the magic of movies, and not about how magical a certain era of movies were. A big part of that has to do with the 3D in this movie. There is a scene in the movie in which the two lead children read about some of the oldest films ever made, include Melies' films, and in that scene we see some of those movies, including the famous Arrival of a Train by the Lumiere Brothers in 3D, which adds a whole new dimension and seems to be a commentary that 3D is one more way that movies are continuing to become more and more magical as time goes on.
Scorsese's argument that 3D is a legitimate advancement of film technology that does add to the experience of films would have been hard for me to accept before I saw this movie, but Scorsese's use of 3D is so good that the only word I can use to describe it is magical. There is depth in each and every shot, and it always the right amount of depth, ever too much and never too little. It is also true that the 3D in this movie would definitely not have been as good if it wasn't for Scorsese's usual visual flair. His camera moves, whooshes, and swoops all over the train station from all different angles. The film camera is a technology that re-created life, many of special effects that Melies used were technologies created dreams, the automaton that Hugo is perplexed by for so long is a technology that created a fascination, and 3D is now the newest technology to continue the magic that technology can elicit. For Scorsese, the greatest example of the magic that technology can create is none other than cinema and the way it creates dreams that we can watch while we're awake.
Grade: B+
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