Medea

. . . though he might have preferred black and white. But that's no criticism. This film evokes The Passion of Joan of Arc, with its stark intimacy; and Vampyr, with its trancelike movement and strange lighting. If ever there were a film that could capture tragic Greek myth, it's this one.

Brilliant expose' and depiction of the classical Greek play. I never had any feeling of sympathy for the character of Medea. I always found her murderous rage against her husband reprehensible. No hatred or anger can justify murdering one's own children. But for the first time, I felt a sadness and compassion towards Medea. Lar Triers treatment and subsequent rendition of Medea's plight made me think of her more than just as a "woman scorned" and I finally understood what moved her to this sacrilegious act of infanticide. Jason was her entire life and the one that she should have killed. So in his absence, she slew his progeny. She wanted to wipe any trace of him from the earth and from her heart. So she destroyed everything at once including herself. There would never be any chance of returning after this unforgivable act.

This is the definitive Medea. Lars Triers deserves praise for bringing this tragedy into focus. For making Medea human instead of a monster he deserves our gratitude.

As every art-house director knows, for mood and atmosphere you only need cut out the dialogue - that's easy. Every line of dialogue makes the action more human, more trivial - which may be the main reason why Shakespeare's plays have little emotional value, no matter how rich the poetry and how high the body count. I mention Shakespeare because the visual presentation here kept reminding me of Hamlet, and no doubt Trier could do a good one because he adds plenty of artistry to the most pared-back ideas. It's not rich, but sparse and fragmentary, like a tattered cloth buffeted by the wind, like patches of memory. The characters merge with the natural elements on several occasions, the sea, the windblown grass.

Medea is very much trapped in an imposed psychology, as are we all. The gods are pulling all the strings, or so it seems. She is not callous, not mechanical in killing her children, but tortured as she does fate's bidding. The children are part of the same system and must play their role in honouring their mother's agony. The tragedy is in the passive resignation. Trier communicates this far better than Pasolini, who communicated next to nothing in his version. We're watching someone plumb the very abyss of misery on account of simple vanity. That has always been worth some reflection.

Wow, this is an inspired film. It takes the myth of Jason written by Euripedes and a script by Carl Th. Dreyer, boths testimony has been proved by the test of time and makes a fantastic low budget masterpiece epic of it. Some people think that its production values spoils the experience, but I would like to ask them this: would Claude Monets paintings look better if they were polished? We see into the fabric of film here and I think that only heightens the realism or it makes me believe it the more as a film, if the focus was on making it look real several other things would get lost.

How big the debt to Dreyers movies are I cant tell as I haven't seen any of his work yet due to poor availability, but as huge it seems it actually makes me a big fan of Dreyer himself, which von Trier also is and don't try to hide.

Metaphors are a plenty here and somehow it works, experiments with filming, post production and so on is evident and really made this a wonderful testimony to an inspired mind. Respect to Lars! Especially for the water scenes, the wind, the golden fleece ...

Art direction may not be 100% historically correct, but it looks very good, Medea herself must have inspired 'Orbital' for their 'The Box' music video some years later.

The revenge she gets are the most raw and brutal I have seen by the way.

Yes it's a great movie but needs an upmost restoration to be able a better look by us who really loves the seventh art, is quite impossible at least to me measure a picture in these conditions, l don't know whose belongs the copyright of this one, but Lars Von Trier didn't deserves such bad shape allowed to sell, unfortunately will be see Monalisa blurry, by this just 7 out 10!!

Resume:

First watch: 2018 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 7