Medea

Lars von Trier´s adaptation of the ancient Greek play (HIS tribute to Carl Th. Dreyer, who originally wrote the manuscript but never got around to filming it) is absolutely stunning.

The actors´ performances (above all Kirsten Olesen, incidentally one of Denmark´s top actresses makes you gasp), the wide landscapes and carefully selected sparse dialogue, but especially Lars von Trier´s direction makes this film a shocking look into the disturbed mind of a woman who has been scorned and left. Medea´s revenge is horrible but never unbelievable. She does what every sane person would do, when deprived of all that she loves. The film burns itself into your mind and leaves you with a lasting impression of what human misery can be like.

A veritable piece of art, belonging up there with most of von Trier´s works - and above all up there with ALL of Dreyer´s works!

Watching this makes me lament Trier. It's good work. It's more than that, in fact. Beautiful pictures are not uncommon in film. In fact, they are getting so banal, say a postcard-perfect sunset, that we (both viewers and makers) often actively seek ugliness, some imperfection that conveys flawed - human - intimacy. Trier has flitted between the two notions (his Dogme entirely devoted to the latter), mixing and matching in a variety of projects down to his recent Melancholia.

But there are really few makers who can consistently furnish the sunsets, and link between them, that reveal something of planets in their orbits. Tarkovsky is king of that close vision from faraway. Watching this makes me lament Trier, because he could have been our current Tarkovsky, much more than either Tarr or Kusturica, who both flirted with carrying the mantle of that cosmogonic art.

This one lacks that orbital vision in different narrative planes (we only have one thread), and is mostly, rapturously devoted to tone poetry of elemental intimacy. It was very early in Trier's career anyway, but it's still a better and more visual third film than most directors ever managed. It's beautiful, but not in the clean sense of a David Lean epic. I prefer it this way.

That is partly because he's working from a barebones story that is ancient myth as interpreted by Euripides (and written into a script by Carl Dreyer): Medea has fled to Corinth promised marriage by the Argonaut Jason, who reneges on that promise when offered the hand of the daughter of the local king. Medea together with her two children is banished from the city.

It is a simple story of injustice. You are going to anticipate every turn, including (probably) the most tragic finale. It is the conventional Medea of myth, betrayed mother, woman, vengeful enchantress of cthonic witchcraft.

But the visual bell boom of this Rublev stretches far and wide, as he rings into being a gauzy world of untime, last fires, and first voyages out to cloudy sea. If only he hadn't lost himself in anger and cynical pessimism.. Tarr has followed suit. I think about the only thing that can keep an intelligent mind sane, is finding rhyme and music in unreason.

It is a masterpiece, it is a perfect adaptation of the Greek tragedy Medea from Euripides, a version where the Gods willing and intervations are absent. Medea is the tragic character that after helping Jason in the Voyage of the Argonauts (myth says that she has even sacrificed her own brother for Jason's success), she gets from him only betrayal, as he arranges to marry the King's of Corinth daughter. The king decides to exile Medea, as she is a danger for his daughter happiness, but Medea asks from him just a day… before she goes outside the borders. That day Medea gets her revenge….. That day we see how Jason is demystified, driven by his lust for a young princess becomes a tragic character. Jason is a man driven by women's strength and willing, he reached the levels of heroism because of a woman, he seeks to get more strength with the help of another woman, who guides him with her sexual power. We see the tragic abandoned woman, taking revenge sacrificing her own children in the name of proving that she still has the power to drive his husband emotions. Is it that also true in our societies? How many times children are the mean for adults' revenge?

Medea's story shown through an epic atmosphere. It is a film perfectly directed. Trier used so nicely light and nature in order to transfer to us the whole atmosphere of tragedy. A tragedy that is created by humans and not Gods…. A story that can be met in our civilized neighbourhood, a story that has for sure heard in the news. As about the actors… a fabulous cast makes this film a work of art. I am glad that I 've found it in the store, I am glad I watched it.

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.