TheRetroCritic

Lars Von Trier may not be the best stand-up comedian out there but when it comes to making really good, really odd, really overblown surrealist films very few match the Danish director's unique talents. Forget the arty noir of Lynch, forget the V/O poetry of Malick, this is a Dali-molesting-baby-Magritte-with-a-chicken-head type of madness that's definitely not for everyone but which should appeal to fans of super slo-mo and talking foxes alike. For those unsure about giving Von Trier's film a go, check out Antichrist (lol). Now, Melancholia is nowhere near as twisted as the director's previous effort but you'll know pretty quickly whether this is a style you can get behind or whether the pretentious nature of the film proves too much to take. His films are a hard pill to swallow and I myself had no idea what to make of Antichrist at first. It occurred to me that I enjoy Von Trier's films on several levels: the silly overblown stuff I like in that it's us

Basing a film on such an obvious metaphor usually calls for either artistic subtlety or visual compensation in order to make the core idea work on more than one shallow level. Thankfully, the points and emotions The Tree tries to put across are safely transmitted but with a little more creativity, the film could have been so much more. For one thing, the idea of a kid's dad being reincarnated into a tree is silly enough without making it as obvious as possible! No mention of the actual "reincarnation" could have added some welcome mystery to the whole thing and made some of the symbolism much less in-your-face. I mean, Charlotte Gainsbourg starts an affair with a new man and the tree crashes into the house shortly after... Why...you don't think... Could it be...? Is...is the tree/dead husband UNHAPPY about all this?! Duh, have you SEEN a movie before? But I'm being mean. Honestly this isn't a bad film at all. Visually it looks nice, the child ac