Melancholia is one of those films that just leaves you in awe. Awe-mazing or awe-ful. This is an art house film that is not for everybody but can be enjoyed by anybody. It’s available on demand right now and makes a limited theatrical release on November 11th. Lars von Trier does a great scarring away people who may have no interest in his film by displaying astonishing slow-mo imagery which foreshadows the rest of his convoluted work for the first 10 minutes. You begin to wonder if the whole movie will be shown like this and then you begin to wonder what the hell you’re watching and then you begin to wonder why you can’t turn away or even close your eyes for a single blink. It’s magical, mesmerizing, monstrous, it’s Melancholia.
Starring Charlotte Gainsbourg, Kiefer Sutherland and Kirsten Dunst who won the Best Actress Award at Cannes for this work, Melancholia is surprisingly a depressing science fiction film involving two sisters and a rogue planet approaching to destroy the world. Melancholia is defined as a mental condition characterized by great depression of spirits and gloomy forebodings. We begin with Justine (Kirsten Dunst) – it’s her wedding day and she seems happy but nothing is as it seems in this movie. It’s quickly evident that Justine’s family is the definition of dysfunctional: her mother (Charlotte Rampling) is an outspoken hippie, her father (John Hurt) is a playful prankster and her sister (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is an overbearing push-over. Justine’s husband (Alexander Skarsgård), father-in-law and mother-in-law seem almost irrelevant.
Kirsten Dunst with Alexander Skarsgård, Kiefer Sutherland and Charlotte Gainsbourg
As the wedding night topples forward, more and more curious events occur. Justine seems to have no interest in her own wedding and the whole engagement feels like a staged sham. Claire, who thought Justine wanted this, tries to keep things going as the “most expensive wedding planner on the planet” (Udo Kier) covers his eyes whenever Justine comes by as she ruined “his” wedding. He’s hilarious. Claire’s husband, John (Kiefer Sutherland), looks like he’s about to pull out his hair as he sees the tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars he put into this wedding go to waste while trying to deal with his stark raving mad ex-wife. At this point of the movie, there’s so much metaphorical imagery since there’s already so much tradition and symbolism in the wedding itself. However, it’s almost impossible to piece together what’s actually going on.
This imagery is like a slap in the face
Almost exactly halfway through when the movies enters part two for the other sister, Claire, the story gets incredibly crazy and intriguing. I couldn’t remember if there was any mention of this approaching planet in the first half, but it’s definitely the topic of discussion in the second. We begin with a severely depressed Justine who seems to be more than just imbalanced and then we learn that there is a huge planet on a course to pass right by Earth. They alluded to this by noticing missing stars in the sky but at no point did we know that there was a possibility that the planet could collide with our planet. Now, the wedding may or may not make sense at this juncture, but the future actions of each character comes into question. We’re at the mansion that the wedding took place which is the home of John, Claire and their son Leo (Cameron Spurr). Justine is staying with them as her sister takes care of her physically and Leo takes care of her mentally.
beautiful.
The draw of this film only increases with time just as the gravitational pull of the approaching planet has its effects on the Earth. The feelings that this movie has on you is unparalleled to any other film in theaters right now – it’s quite amazing. Even though this is somewhat of a sci-fi film, they simplified the science for the true audience of this art. The almost instant flip of roles from part one of the wedding to part two is revealing. This was a greatly constructed story with only a few obvious flaws. It’s quite enjoyable and the acting/directing was spot on with the feelings the script aimed to produce. There are some movies which can be interpreted in a million different ways and which leave audiences members feeling a tremendous amount of varied states but Melancholia leaves you with a sense of simplistic understanding. What is there to do?
Tags: Alexander Skarsgård, Cameron Spurr, Cannes, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Kiefer Sutherland, Kirsten Dunst, Lars von Trier, Melancholia, Udo Kier
Matthew Fong created advancescreenings.com and is the lead contributor. He watches every type of movie and will try almost anything twice. You can follow him on twitter here: @matthewfong
