Melancholia Review

After Von Trier's controversial remarks and Kirsten Dunst winning best actress for the film at Cannes, Melancholia has been greatly anticipated. It finally hits theaters tomorrow. While, it will not be widely distributed, please make sure to go and see this film. If you are not familiar with Von Trier's work, this is a good one to start with. The film is more merciful than Antichrist, but still has all the 'Trierian' style you could ever want as he creates yet another beautiful world for audiences to behold. Von Trier does not seem to forget that the end of the world does not solely bring about the end of life, it brings up an examination and reflection of life. For this apocalyptic film is just as much about living. Even when facing the end of life as we know it, Melancholia displays how emotionally vivid, and visually stunning the apocalypse can be. 

The film's style, performances, and tone are very Von Trier, but very strange. The story focusses on two sisters. Justine (Dunst), on her wedding night, and Claire (Gainsbourg) who is facing the end of the world. People within the world Von Trier creates, an alternate Earth, are aware that another planet entitled Melancholia is approaching Earth. There is debate on whether or not the planet will either hit or pass the Earth, which provides a great tension between skepticism and absolute knowledge. But there is not just another planet closing in on the world of the film, the audience itself is closing in on the world. The best aspect of the film is its ambiguously strange sequences. The audience will get a sense that they are missing something, some understanding of how the characters are interacting, and will slowly close in on these aspects slowly throughout the film just as the ominous planet approaches Earth. While the film is is still incredibly intense and dark at times, this is Von Trier's most humorous film. There are instances that resemble the dry and depressed humor of a Wes Anderson film. Kiefer Sutherland does a great job at being subtly hilarious. And there will be times where you will laugh during the film. However the title of the film is Melancholia, so you will get your dose of sadness and depression. Much of this comes from Dunst's performance. Her moments of happiness are undercut by her subtle looks of sadness, as her depressive background starts to be revealed more and more. It is extremely interesting watching her try to pretend to be happy on her wedding day, a day in which everyone expects the bride to be happy. It is probably her best performance to date. 

I cannot ruin much, because part of the film is feeling like you really do not know what the hell is going on. But I will say Von Trier does an amazing job compressing time within the film. One of the first shots shows a huge sun dial, so you know time becomes an issue. There is this motif of counting and keeping track of the world, in the way we track time; at the wedding there is a competition to see how many beans are in this vase, and Kiefer Sutherland's character, who seems to be a symbol for reason in the film, constantly reminds people that the golf course on his property has 18 holes. One would think that'd be a given. The film explores whether or not we can truly know or be certain about anything. What will we realize when another world we know so little about is going to crash into our world, which we know even less about? All we can do is hope that the universe will miss the Earth after it perishes.