MELANCHOLIA (2)

I caught MELANCHOLIA for a second time tonight as part of the Three Rivers Film Festival. It was programmed for a single screening at the Harris Theater, our lone downtown theater and the region's smallest art theater, at about 115 seats. It was a curious decision to put the Festival's film with the most stars and crossover buzz in the tiniest venue, but the upside was the unusual sight of a large crowd of people stuffing the sidewalk on Liberty Avenue a half-hour before showtime. I've been to shows at the Harris where it was me and one or two others, but I can think of maybe only one other time (Mike Seate's cafe racer documentary) where it was packed to the gills.

Anyway, ten minutes or so from the end, right after Claire grabs her son and drives down the front nine in the golf cart, the film abruptly cut to the credits, though they were backwards and upside-down. I laughed and figured they'd got the last reel spooled wrong, and waited for them to fix it. But apparently nobody in the projection booth knew right away, because they let the credits wind and the house lights, probably keyed in to the credits, went up. People started looking around with confusion. The credits kept running. Then people started to get up and leave. I guess maybe they thought Lars had let the people of Earth off the hook. Maybe that opening montage-- the Perfume Ads of the Damned-- was just a head-fake, the inchoate cry of Justine's disease. People are filing out. I've got a choice to make: either I can be Claire, and allow them to go into the chilly night with a measure of misplaced comfort, or I can be Justine, and assert that life on Earth is not for long.

"I've seen the film before. That's not how it ends. They've got the reel mixed up."

The young woman next to me is intrigued by this information. Even better, she's far more comfortable with speaking at high volume to large crowds of strangers. "HEY. THIS GUY'S SEEN THE FILM BEFORE. THAT'S NOT HOW IT ENDS. SOMETHING HAPPENED TO THE REEL."

Now the people who had started leaving have stopped in the aisle and are looking back and forth from me to the screen filled with backward letters. Another moment passes. Finally, a guy from the projection booth casually walks into the theater and goes to the microphone to break the news.