"Life is only on Earth. And not for long."

Film: Melancholia
Writer/Director: Lars von Trier

Starring: Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Kiefer Sutherland, Alexander Skarsgård, Charlotte Rampling, John Hurt, Stellan Skarsgård, Brady Corbet, Udo Kier.
Running time: 136 min


You can love him. You can loathe him. In fact, there are probably a lot more people against Lars von Trier nowadays after his Nazi gaffe at a press conference in Cannes earlier this year. Cannes booted him out, but luckily they didn't boot his film, Melancholia, out of the competition, and Kirsten Dunst ended up winning Best Actress. Lars, a Danish director with the word 'fuck' proudly tattooed on the fingers on his right hand, is not known for making pleasant films and doesn't shy away from much on screen (let's just take the genital mutilation in Antichrist as an example here...) Melancholia, however, may be one of the most tame films that he has done in a while, and apparently his first to have an unhappy ending. Still, while I don't really respect von Trier as a person, he sure knows how to make a good film.

While the film is tame, with Melancholia, von Trier deals with a pretty heavy topic: the apocalypse. No, this isn't the kind that has John Cusack saving a whole lot of people in the nick of time. Instead, the oncoming apocalypse is just a minor detail in the film until halfway through, where it starts becoming more and more apparent. As the film opens, we see Kirsten Dunst, playing the clinically depressed Justine, staring at the dead birds falling all around her. Then there are several highly-stylised slow motion scenes of some of the characters and space. At the end of this, the Earth is shown colliding with a bigger planet, known as 'Melancholia'. The film, after that, is divided into two parts. The first is from Justine's perspective, at the reception of her wedding to Michael (Alexander Skarsgård), at her sister Claire's (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and her husband John's (Kiefer Sutherland) castle/golf course. Justine tries to appear happy at this event but is disenchanted by it all and leaves several times.

This first part is probably the film's best. For most of it, it appears to be a comedy, mainly because of the acerbic humour from Justine and Claire's mother, Gaby (Charlotte Rampling). There are some fine moments of light-hearted laughs and smiles. But while it all appears to be happy, this is one wedding which sets out to make you feel awful. Kirsten Dunst is magnificent to watch in this part because of the way she's introduced: beaming and blissful, completely ignorant of the fact that she's two hours late to her own party and her sister seems to resent her for that. Through this entire party, her façade starts to disappear and she slowly starts to unleash evil onto everyone else and herself. While it's slightly annoying and disturbing watching Justine be quite ungrateful and ruin everything, there is comic relief which comes in the form of Justine's family. As I said, there's the acerbic humour from Gaby. But there's also humour in Justine and Claire's father, Dexter (John Hurt), who just likes to have a good time. Kiefer Sutherland is also particularly funny to watch, as he tries to deal with his wife's crazy family and with the fact that he has paid for this brilliant reception and the bride doesn't seem to be enjoying all of his money quite as much as he had hoped.

The film is practically all fun and games until the very late stages of the first part, which bridges the gap between the first and the second part. This part focuses on Claire, and more on the apocalyptic side of things. Justine arrives at Claire and John's estate, so depressed that she finds it hard to do normal things like eat and take a bath. Claire looks after her, until Justine slowly becomes more and more coherent. The film then switches gear as Melancholia comes closer and closer to Earth, with Claire constantly worrying about the planet's movements. While I'd like to say that this chapter belongs to Charlotte Gainsbourg, who does perform terribly well, Dunst is again magnificent to watch. Her clinical depression is something which is very painful to watch, as she loses faith in everything around her. And that provides a beautiful gateway into what the movie is trying to say about the apocalypse.

The apocalypse matter is beautifully handled. Most apocalyptic movies tend to have people dodging falling things from the sky, but this movie focuses more on the psychological side of it all. Most of the stunning apocalyptic scenes happen at the very beginning in the montage of connected scenes, which leaves the latter stage of the film to deal with the actual human side of the apocalypse. Lars von Trier was right: this film has a very unhappy ending. But it is also an ending which sends shock-waves through your system. I, for one, was left shaken by it's sheer power that was mainly achieved to some very clever sound effects and staging, and the differing emotions of those involved. Everything about this movie was frighteningly real. Because, after all, the movie was really about humans being humans, life being life, and the end being the end.

Melancholia is by no means a perfect movie, though. There are several aspects of it that didn't work, and a lot of background that wasn't explained. It is pretty much like the audience is thrown into these people's lives, and we don't end up ever knowing that much about them. The film has very languid pacing - there are points when it is not terribly exciting. The tonal shifts are particularly disappointing, as the film goes from comedy to drama to sci-fi, without smooth transitions between them all. The dialogue is thinly written during the second part. There are a lot of things which stop Melancholia from achieving greatness, and I doubt that it will get any recognition come Oscar time. But I do have to admire what Lars von Trier has done here: given us a realistic view on something that may/may not happen in our future and plunged his audience into a deep ecstasy of depression...all through his hand-held camera. You can love him, or you can loathe him. Me? I can't ignore the fact that Melancholia is a stunning piece of cinema, by a man who does know how to make a good film.

My rating: