Melancholie Der Engel slipped the radar of sick art-house films back in 2009. Why exactly is not known however it might be to do with the fact the company marketing this just didn't do so way back then. However in 2013 it seems to have appeared on a few websites notorious for censorship and extreme cinema. Interest is suddenly swooning around this weird art-house thriller from Marian Dora, who also directed 2006's Cannibal.
For this reviewer, one watch of Melancholie Der Engel was enough. Being a big fan of controversial cinema, namely A Serbian Film and Salo, Dora's monster is almost three hours of complete weirdness and infrequent WTF moments. Zenza Raggi, who stars in an endless list of pornographic movies, leads this "tale" of a group of people who gather to strange house for the weekend to experiment in dark pleasures. Who they are and what they're doing is never fully realised or explained in dialogue or plot. Most of the films duration revolves around some seriously weird and beautiful music combining wonderful landscapes and cinematography. Some of the music sounds almost exactly like Brian Eno. However the flip side is most of the time you'll also see close-ups of skeletons of dead animals, burnt remains, bodily fluids, creepy crawlies, and just about everything imaginable to put you off your next meal. Well done to Dora for creating atmosphere which is truly grotesque and unique but most of all, powerful enough to convincingly unsettle. The characters together with the unsettling atmosphere make you believe Melancholie Der Engel takes place in another time, hundreds of years ago - another world even.
Dora has some serious skills for managing to cast a group together who were happy enough to be filmed and act through with the explicit, distasteful visuals which at one time belonged only to the webs darkest.
How it attains an atmosphere of depression and dread from the beginning however, is truly cheap and distasteful. Insects and animals are crushed and tortured at intervals; a small lizard is crushed to death, in another moment a snails eyes are cut off with scissors - all real. I didn't see (excuse the pun) any reason for this to happen, considering the movie has enough fictional violence and crazy debauchery on its own. For example, an old man who joins the group early on brings a girl in a wheelchair to the "party" who is openly abused and left lying around like an object. This man is later cut up (also for no reason) and left to crawl home with his guts hanging out. The group burn him on a bonfire, at which point another character is that excited he gets someone to masturbate him to climax in explicit close-up. In addition, the movie contains people being defecated and urinated on, both alive and dead.
I can't rate Melancholie Der Engel high on my list simply because it does seem to be a plot-less, direction-less compilation of weirdness and sick fantasies. The general ruthlessness of the animal cruelty also put me off recommending this to anyone, which I think is understandable. Good movies should present fiction and suspend the viewers disbelief without relying on real, unnecessary cruelty. The biggest problem it has going for it though, its length, will make many viewers fast forward through it before they get to the truly puke inducing scenes, in the last forty minutes.
Either way, if you're a fan of extreme movies, this one should be on your list. The way it comes together as a whole package though, is not as great as others. If Dora cut the animal cruelty and presented a new condensed cut - Melancholie Der Engel would score more points from me and be easier to recommend.
For this reviewer, one watch of Melancholie Der Engel was enough. Being a big fan of controversial cinema, namely A Serbian Film and Salo, Dora's monster is almost three hours of complete weirdness and infrequent WTF moments. Zenza Raggi, who stars in an endless list of pornographic movies, leads this "tale" of a group of people who gather to strange house for the weekend to experiment in dark pleasures. Who they are and what they're doing is never fully realised or explained in dialogue or plot. Most of the films duration revolves around some seriously weird and beautiful music combining wonderful landscapes and cinematography. Some of the music sounds almost exactly like Brian Eno. However the flip side is most of the time you'll also see close-ups of skeletons of dead animals, burnt remains, bodily fluids, creepy crawlies, and just about everything imaginable to put you off your next meal. Well done to Dora for creating atmosphere which is truly grotesque and unique but most of all, powerful enough to convincingly unsettle. The characters together with the unsettling atmosphere make you believe Melancholie Der Engel takes place in another time, hundreds of years ago - another world even.
Dora has some serious skills for managing to cast a group together who were happy enough to be filmed and act through with the explicit, distasteful visuals which at one time belonged only to the webs darkest.
How it attains an atmosphere of depression and dread from the beginning however, is truly cheap and distasteful. Insects and animals are crushed and tortured at intervals; a small lizard is crushed to death, in another moment a snails eyes are cut off with scissors - all real. I didn't see (excuse the pun) any reason for this to happen, considering the movie has enough fictional violence and crazy debauchery on its own. For example, an old man who joins the group early on brings a girl in a wheelchair to the "party" who is openly abused and left lying around like an object. This man is later cut up (also for no reason) and left to crawl home with his guts hanging out. The group burn him on a bonfire, at which point another character is that excited he gets someone to masturbate him to climax in explicit close-up. In addition, the movie contains people being defecated and urinated on, both alive and dead.
I can't rate Melancholie Der Engel high on my list simply because it does seem to be a plot-less, direction-less compilation of weirdness and sick fantasies. The general ruthlessness of the animal cruelty also put me off recommending this to anyone, which I think is understandable. Good movies should present fiction and suspend the viewers disbelief without relying on real, unnecessary cruelty. The biggest problem it has going for it though, its length, will make many viewers fast forward through it before they get to the truly puke inducing scenes, in the last forty minutes.
Either way, if you're a fan of extreme movies, this one should be on your list. The way it comes together as a whole package though, is not as great as others. If Dora cut the animal cruelty and presented a new condensed cut - Melancholie Der Engel would score more points from me and be easier to recommend.