It's the End of The Festival Celebrating the End of the World as We Know it!!! Here's the second half of the...you know the rest...
Seeking
a Friend for the End of the World
Steve
Carrel and Keira Knightley meet up two weeks before a giant meteor,
“Matilda”, is due to hit the planet Earth and destroy all life
forms. He is an unsatisfied insurance salesman who, when she
apologizes for ruining his life, says “I had a big head start.”
She is a slightly flaky optimist who misses the last plane home to
England before all commercial flights are grounded. They go on a
road trip to try to achieve some meaning in their last remaining
days, he to attempt a reunion with his high school girlfriend, she to
find a plane that will take her home. Along the way, they meet all
kinds of people who are dealing with the upcoming end of the world in
their own ways, by “finally taking that pottery class” to doing
heroin (“Bucket list!) to just carrying on as does the news anchor
who decides to keep broadcasting right until the final day. There
are some truly funny scenes, including one in a roadside eatery,
“Friendzy's”, where hedonism reigns. The truth of the movie lies
in its emotional veracity and fearlessness in facing the sadness at
its heart.
Steve
Carell is amazingly good in this movie. I would compare him to Jack
Lemmon in The Apartment, one of my favourite funny/sad movies. Both
play men who have allowed their lives to be empty because they don't
believe that they deserve better. They are hapless and brave and
sweet. Like Lemmon, Carell has the most heartbreakingly sad smile,
and I can't watch the last few scenes without a tear in my eye. This
is the best of the “end of the world” movies, with the most
consistently good writing and the best mixture of the comic and
tragic. If you see only one apocalyptic movie before we all die in a
blazing fireball...
Melancholia
First
of all, I would cut out the first 25 minutes of the movie, and hope
that everyone in the theatre is so tired and depressed at this point
that they don't notice. The movie starts out with a long sequence
involving the elaborate wedding reception of a woman which is being
hosted and choreographed by her sister and her wealthy
brother-in-law. It's not that this is poorly done or lacks dramatic
tension. It's just that it has almost nothing to do with the second
half of the movie, which takes place some months later as the
newlywed woman leaves a mental hospital and goes to stay at her
sister's house. It's the same characters and setting as the wedding
scenes, but really nothing in the first half is necessary to the
second. 'Sright, Lars von Triers, I do think I know better than you
how to edit a movie.
So
as this visit begins, rumours and speculation abound regarding a
newly discovered planet which some believe is on a collision course
with Earth. The married sister, Charlotte Rampling, tries to avoid
thinking about this possibility, while her smug husband Keifer
Sutherland reassures their son that this is impossible. As you might
guess by the movie's inclusion in my film festival, he's wrong and
also absolutely no help as the two sisters try to protect the boy
from the horrors of the situation while coping themselves with the
inevitable annihilation of their planet. It is a chilling film,
emotionally authentic, and incredibly moving. And that is the way the
film festival ends, both with a whimper and with a bang.
THE
END?
