Melancholia
One scar makes 2. 2 scars make 4. 4 scars make 8.
Political scars don’t just trickle down they sliced through peoples lives like a jet slicing through the sound barrier. The world rotting from the top down.
The wordless suffering and isolation of the revolutionary. How does one cope with the unendurable and inhospitable. Is there a remedy? can one cope with all that is in front us? ones identity ripping at the seams, the patchwork of another identity to patch up the holes.
Melancholia is a battle to the death with an omnipotent causality. An enemy constantly surrounding you. It simultaneously materially and palpably damages you yet it is completely imperceptible.
Angeli Bayani gives the single greatest performance ever put to screen. Melancholia possesses the most mind-boggling, complicated, nuanced, intricate, layered, complex scenes of dialogue I have ever seen. I have absolutely no idea what he said to his actors to get these performances out of them.
The moment to moment story beats, let alone the monolithic length of some of these dialogue, sequences is frankly unparalleled to anything I’ve ever seen. Either this took the best actors doing unbelievably in depth rehearsals, or Lav Diaz has found the greatest actors on earth to pull off some of these dialogue sequences.
The entire jungle sequence is one of the greatest sections of any film I’ve ever seen.
A stabbing of the spirit at every waking moment.