Melancholia
Movies by Lars von Trier always wash over me like a wave. I feel cleansed afterwards albeit with a layer of philosophical dread. Like any name director – Tarantino, Kubrick, et al. – von Trier films are instantly recognizable, only in the case of the notoriously brash Danish director that’s because of their “cinema of cruelty” overtones.
I like Melancholia a lot, even though I don’t think it’s as good as von Trier’s previous mind warping genre bender Antichrist. von Trier tells us everything we need to know in the first few minutes of Melancholia; a rogue planet previously hidden behind the Sun heads towards a collision course with Earth. These opening minutes are presented by von Trier in the manner of the tableau scenes from Breaking the Waves combined with the extreme slo-motion photography that opens Antichrist. The shots are saturated with color and depict ectoplasm, Kirsten Dunst in a wedding dress, horses and finally Melancholia destroying Earth like a big car running over a small animal.
Then the film proper begins and it seems that von Trier mines areas already explored in some of his previous films, and in particular the dysfunctional family at a wedding drama of his fellow Danish filmmaker Thomas Vinterberg (The Celebration).
Throughout the course of the wedding party Dunst, getting married to Alexander Skarsgard, breaks all the rules and bonds that tie her to Skarsgard’s family, including telling his father (aptly played by Stellan Skarsgard) how much she hates him. The party, set on an extravagant estate owned by Kiefer Sutherland (married to Dunst’s sister Charlotte Gainsbourg) moves inside and outside, both the house’s doors and metaphorically the bounds of human civility. John Hurt, Udo Kier (the wedding planner), and Charlotte Rampling also co-star.
Melancholia is cerebral sci-fi (mixed with family drama). But this thinking person’s apocalypse movie has a different agenda from other types of world destruction films. And there’s been plenty in the last year ranging in scope and budget including 2024, Another Earth, and Take Shelter. Melancholia indulges in clever ways to introduce the space theme, like having a telescope-viewing event scheduled during the party, or Gainsbourg’s young son coming up with an ad hoc device constructed on wood and wire that can be used to gauge the size in the sky of the ever increasing oncoming planet.
What von Trier most wants to explore is the relation between the sisters, one who’s exhausted her rage and calmly awaits the end of the world while the other has offered nothing but love to all around her yet sits huddling with her child and crying as the worlds collide. Underlying themes of religion and existential musings will be hotly contested by all who come under Melancholia’s spell.
Melancholia opens at the Sundance Cinemas Houston today.
— Michael Bergeron
