Directed by: Lars von Trier; starring: Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Keifer Sutherland, Alexander Skarsgard
So, as you may or may not have heard, Melancholia is about the end of the world. Or is it?
I was lucky (again: or was I?) to catch what must be near enough one of the last London screenings of Melancholia at the Prince Charles cinema just off Leicester Square.
At the risk of sounding a bit melodramatic, I’ll say it was a movie-watching experience unlike any other I have ever had.
It begins with a slo-mo montage that is so slo-mo it’s almost no-mo at all, set to the loud (so loud) swelling strings of Wagner. Each little scene looks like an eerie painting, each foreshadowing a little bit of the movie. Then it’s onto ‘Part 1: Justine’, and we’re at the wedding of Justine (Dunst) and Michael (Skarsgard) - to which the couple themselves have arrived two hours late, to the irritation of Justine’s older, responsible, no-nonsense sister, Claire.
At first things seem okay – apart from the late arrival – but we soon learn that Justine suffers from a crippling depression. She wanders in and out of the carefully-planned proceedings whenever she feels like it, to either take a bath or have sex with someone who isn’t her husband on the golf course. The awful, horrible tension – between the sisters, between their cold mother and not-quite-all-there father, between the newlyweds, between Justine and her boss - builds and builds and culminates not with a bang, but with a quiet, agonising moment between the new husband and wife.
After the horror of the wedding, we move onto ‘Part 2: Claire’, which takes place a few months later. (It is around this time we first hear tell of another planet, named Melancholia, making its way closer and closer to earth.) Justine arrives by taxi at the home of Claire and her amateur astronomer husband (Sutherland) and their son, Leo. In the grip of a depression that is almost watch-between-your-fingers painful to witness, Justine can barely function, spends days in bed and can’t even summon the energy to climb in the bath. It is truly the best performance I have ever seen Kirsten Dunst give, and she’s one of those who, for me, can do no wrong.
When Melancholia begins to rise higher and brighter in the sky each night, Justine seems to return to herself a little more. Claire, on the other hand, gets more and more anxious in the face of the looming planet, and the most interesting facet of the movie becomes more tangible – the end of the world is bound to change people, even reverse their roles completely. Here, Justine seems to almost welcome the end of all things – what, after all, does she have to lose? To her, the earth is evil: “no one will miss it,” she declares. Her ambivalence equates to strength in their last days. But sensible Claire descends slowly into hysteria; who wouldn’t, knowing their child must join them at the end of the world?
I guess it’s up to each movie-goer to decide whether the whole thing is a metaphor or not. And if it is, what is it a metaphor for? Relationships? Marriage? Selfishness? Depression? The idea that, when the world does come to an end, everything but that simple fact will lose all significance?
To be honest, I didn’t really care about any of that when the film finished. All I knew was that I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d just been punched repeatedly in the gut. At the same time as someone swirling my brain around inside my head. While a bright light was pointed right into my eyes. My friend felt vaguely ill.
Then I realised why: Melancholia is so hateful, so persistently bleak, doomful and downright freaky, that it kind of felt like watching someone tortured for two hours. Essentially, it’s not far from the truth – von Trier watchers know he often makes his actresses suffer for the sake of his movies (see genitalia-slicing Antichrist, which doesn’t even need a spoiler alert anymore).
Having said all that, I cannot stop thinking about it. First off, it was completely beautiful, visually; the light, the colour, the effects. Second, a movie hasn’t given me that gut-punched feeling in ages, and while at the time it was an unwelcome sensation, I later found myself pleased. Pleased that a film had been made that could affect me on a physical level, and managed to worm its way out of every ‘box’ I tried to put it in while I struggled to define it to myself for my own peace of mind.
There is nothing ‘easy’ about Melancholia, but I reckon it’s definitely worth the struggle – if only for the feeling, which is so foreign in this age of seat-filling, box-ticking films, of not quite knowing what to make of it.
Verdict: ****
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