Cannes 2011 could be shaping up to be one of the more ambitious outings of the festival in recent years with it's two flagship pieces; Terrence Malick's
Tree of Life - a movie about life, the universe... and dinosaurs, and
Lars Von Trier's Melancholia - a trippy end of the world drama that re-tells the final days of an apocalypse on Earth as the planet Melancholia, which has been hiding behind the Sun, draws close. Neither film would pack movie complexes around the world but both personal, somewhat ludicrous artistic endeavours are what the Cannes Film Festival was made for. It's where movies like Southland Tales are broken for their absurdity and challenging and cerebral films like Anti-Christ are championed. Although not quite yet 100% confirmed for Cannes (though it will play there, trust me), Zentropa have just released the very first trailer for the Melancholia and they are punctuating it's tagline with some fury, calling it a "beautiful movie about the end of the world".
Warning - the trailer is somewhat NSFW because of two naked shots of
Kirsten Dunst, but you can probably get away with both of them as long as you don't full size your screen. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iz85aGRoZfY Despite the somewhat laughable plot that trumps a Michael Bay movie (no Asteriod... just one giant planet!!), and I say laughable because the 'threat' shots of the planet looming ever closer is a little cheesy, the movie has me completely hooked. I love Von Trier's camera work, the Polanski nature of his direction where the impending doom and a sense of melancholy, seems to hang over every word of dialogue and falsity at the wedding which opens it. Carrying on her desire for more challenging roles (I quite enjoyed her performance in All Good Things) -
Kirsten Dunst leads as one of two sisters, who on her wedding day begins to feel the end is nigh. Von Trier's brought
Charlotte Rampling over from Anti-Christ and
Kiefer Sutherland as her sister's husband.
John HurtStellan Skarsgård,
Udo Kier and
Jesper Christensen and a few other recongisable faces support. Artifical Eye are releasing Melancholia in the U.K. on July 1st and a U.S. deal has already been secured via Magnolia Pictures. Interestingly, the movie has already secured an opening in Scandinavia next month and hopefully a debut on the Croisette will be confirmed soon.