Geraldine's
Kudos to 'Chronicle' Film Critics
RECEIVED Mon., Jan. 9, 2012
Dear Editor,
Kudos to The Austin Chronicle film critics who, unlike the vast majority of their brethren, recognized Melancholia as the best film of the year ("Kind of Blue," Jan. 6).
The critical reactions of the critics – which varied between ambivalence and reluctant praise – are a testament to writer/director Lars von Trier as an artist-provocateur. Take NPR critic David Edelstein's comments about how he could characterize Melancholia as a "masterpiece," and yet not include it on his Top 10: "I just couldn't do it. … It is such a hateful film. It is the work of a nihilistic annihilist. For Lars von Trier, the world, when it ends, is, well, lost. ... When one chooses the things that one loves and one wants to recommend, it's a very difficult question: Can you love a film – can you recommend a film that highly – that peddles a worldview that you find utterly hateful, even poisonous? I don't know the answer to that. That's why it's my little asterisk." But Edelstein and the other critics' reactions completely disregarded the arc of the main character, which to me could not be more life-affirming. Moreover, it is not so much that von Trier has something negative to say about the afterlife, so much as he has nothing to say about it, which is what really bothers people in the context of an apocalyptic metaphor.
By comparison, Melancholia was no less visually stunning, no less well-acted, and no less personal for von Trier than Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life – the critics' darling. Yet I found nothing daring about the latter – a mess of a film and an exercise in pretentious pandering complete with a trailer that spoon-fed the themes. (And we got it Malick, your mother was perfect.)
Thanks again, Austin Chronicle, for another year of film reviews that rival any other publication.
Kudos to The Austin Chronicle film critics who, unlike the vast majority of their brethren, recognized Melancholia as the best film of the year ("Kind of Blue," Jan. 6).
The critical reactions of the critics – which varied between ambivalence and reluctant praise – are a testament to writer/director Lars von Trier as an artist-provocateur. Take NPR critic David Edelstein's comments about how he could characterize Melancholia as a "masterpiece," and yet not include it on his Top 10: "I just couldn't do it. … It is such a hateful film. It is the work of a nihilistic annihilist. For Lars von Trier, the world, when it ends, is, well, lost. ... When one chooses the things that one loves and one wants to recommend, it's a very difficult question: Can you love a film – can you recommend a film that highly – that peddles a worldview that you find utterly hateful, even poisonous? I don't know the answer to that. That's why it's my little asterisk." But Edelstein and the other critics' reactions completely disregarded the arc of the main character, which to me could not be more life-affirming. Moreover, it is not so much that von Trier has something negative to say about the afterlife, so much as he has nothing to say about it, which is what really bothers people in the context of an apocalyptic metaphor.
By comparison, Melancholia was no less visually stunning, no less well-acted, and no less personal for von Trier than Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life – the critics' darling. Yet I found nothing daring about the latter – a mess of a film and an exercise in pretentious pandering complete with a trailer that spoon-fed the themes. (And we got it Malick, your mother was perfect.)
Thanks again, Austin Chronicle, for another year of film reviews that rival any other publication.
Steven Baker
