Movies

Decided to watch some movies tonight. First up was Moon by Duncan Jones. The movie is excellent, nice pacing, well structured, exploring identity and existenalism (kinda). Mankind is getting most of their energy from a base on the moon, which is manned by one person on three year shifts.  The movie explores how this affects him, his relationships, and a hypothetical extra shoe. Without giving away too many plot spoilers, this is a superb movie. Stylewise, it sits somewhere between 2001 and Sunshine, 8/10.

I've just finished Lars von Trier's Antichrist, dedicated to Tarkovsky, which explained a bit. Powerful, interesting, and not nearly as disturbing as some people have said. The movie explores feelings of loss after a child's death, looking at how grief affects people differently. It seemed more linear than some of von Trier's movies, and the leads, Willem Defoe and Charlotte Gainsburg, were mesmerising. Following the death, the husband pulls the wife from the hospital psychiatrist and begins treating her himself. Together they explore her fears, based largely on an uncompleted thesis she was working on in a deserted hut. Sex is used as both the cause of death, the antidote to death, and as a means of keeping the couple together. She begins to suspect he's leaving her, and so begins her descent to madness, and his initially rational sanity is increasingly challenged by disturbing images. I really liked this movie, elements of Cronenberg in there (Crash in particular), and definitely worth watching - even an element of redemption, which is not a von Trier strong suit. Again 8/10. Possibly 9.

May watch a horror to relax soon ...