How odd that last year's two best films, Melancholia and Tree of Life, made by the most incredibly disparate filmmakers imaginable, should be such complementary companion pieces. It's as if they're opposite sides of the same artwork. Both are perfect: technically brilliant, and each so flawless a personal communication from its filmmaker that it can't be rightly judged in the normal sense. That is, it is impossible to say with any truth "this is bad" about either film, even about any element of either film; one can only say, "I prefer this," or possibly "This one resonates more fully with me."
I believe both films ask a mystical question and both answer in lovely, unambiguously articulated ways. Terence Malick, that beautiful mystic, says, "Life is hard; humans rub up against one another in sometimes awful ways; even with success in our society comes often unbearable loneliness; but, in the end, we are all one -- God, nature, humans, -- all one, and so all is well." Lars Von Trier, that crazy, wonderful, ever-vivacious pessimist, says, "Life is hard; humans rub up against one another in sometimes awful ways; even with success in our society comes often unbearable loneliness; but, in the end, life as we know it will be destroyed, and the universe will be a better place for it, and so all is well."
Malick fan that I am, Tree of Life was not easy. Suburban America in the fifties is not a compelling setting for me, and the only woman in the story is a highly-idealized mother seen through the gauze of nostalgia. That is not a criticism: it is an integral outgrowth of the shape of the story, and so inevitable, but the fact remains that I'm not terribly interested in vague, romanticized female characters, even when romanticized by such marvelous company as Mr. Malick.
Melancholia, on the other hand, was an enjoyable romp in the woods for me, but it was the kind of romp that kept me up half the night thinking on it, with its images seething endlessly in my sleepless brain. It did not leave me, not for days afterward. At no moment during the entire film did I know what was going to happen next, or even lift myself out of my suspension of disbelief long enough to ask the question. Like all Von Trier films, it was not easy, but this time he did not go out of his way to make the road so unpleasant that I felt soiled afterwards, and I'm heartily appreciative of that. My friend Carolyn complained: "Who cares about rich white people panicking at the end of the world?" and she has a valid point. The film seems to be set in France, but in that snow-white Amelie-verse which is completely without ethnic diversity, and, ultimately, who really does care that much about rich white people?
BUT technically it was yes! pefect! with wonderful contrasts between the shaky-cam, starkly-lit wedding-party inside and the Wagner-soundtracked, gorgeous-velvet-lit temporary escapes into the night-time outside. It is a story told through women, and the Kristen Dunst character is not only full and true, a magnificent achievement, but those around her feel full and true as well. Charlotte Rampling's character is one I've never seen before, an unapologetic powerhouse of anti-maternal energy, and I am still marvelling at her. Hollywood would give you this kind of character only in an archly comic way, and even then she would relent and show her softness before the end. Not so Von Trier. I think I am falling in love with this man.
My belief is that if you showed these as a double feature, the audience would leave the cinema buzzing with numinous energy. Indeed, certain more highly-evolved members might actually disintegrate and transcend this physical plane, using this double bill as a gateway onto a higher plane of existence. You might bear that in mind when choosing who sits alongside you while you watch.
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