Melancholia (2011)

This is a film that I have been incredibly excited about seeing for many months, ever since it premiered and made waves at the Cannes Film Festival. Directly lined against Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life which is a celebration of the creation and evolution of life, and even death, on a micro and macro-cosmic level, Melancholia was seen as the antithesis, a film about the end of the world. We know this from the onset, from the trailer even, and so I decided to approach watching this film on a purely emotional level, something much different than what I have done in the past, as I felt that this sort of topic could only really be discussed by feeling once the initial science is tossed aside.

To give a general sense of the film, I will first list the words that I jotted down at the beginning of the film, and then those at the end, hopefully giving a broad sense of the emotional journey that this film led me down. The beginning: grandeur, operatic, primal, poetic, bleak, chaos, melodramatic, paranoiac. The end: dead, bleak, black, depressive, fatalistic, pointless. That final word is one which I would like to stress, not only because of the futility of the actions of the characters as the planet Melancholia heads for a course to Earth, but also this is a fitting word for the film in general. My hopes were crushed with this film, as this was a pretentious, lugubrious work from a man who is having some very serious issues determining how his life fits with the rest of humanity.

The plot is simple: a planet that has been hiding behind the Sun has suddenly appeared, and seems to be on a trajectory to hit us. It does, of course; the opening sequence of the film is the collision, so there are no surprises at the end. The next two hours are spent examining a new bride, Justine (Kirsten Dunst), and her relationships with her family, particularly the already strained one with her sister (Charlotte Gainsbourg), as her humours are distorted by the approaching planet. This is absolutely a topic that I should have watched and been absorbed by, but director Lars von Trier's ugly view of the human condition made watching this film a particularly unenjoyable experience.

All of the characters in this film were petty, selfish, cold people focused on money, or holding on to grudges, or seeking to advance their careers. Nobody was out to help one another so all interactions turned into confrontation. For example, on Justine's wedding night both of her divorced parents attend the service. Her mother is one of the most despicable characters that I have seen written in a very long time. She comes to the  wedding in a t-shirt and mopes about, muttering cruel insults under her breath all evening because she doesn't believe marriage can work. Deciding to give a speech, she stands before all of the guests and says that their wedding is a sham and will end up like her own. How could a situation like this ever happen in real life? People are not structured in such a way that they would intentionally make an ass out of themselves like that. Von Trier takes such a simplistically negative view of people which very much drained the majesty from the content.

I cannot think of a worse way to spend my final days on Earth than with people that I do not love, or even like. Knowing right from the start that the world was going to end, it makes sense that then the director should make some sort of attempt to have his audience feel something like sympathy, or compassion, or sadness for the fact that their family unit and all that they have worked for would soon becoming to a swift and violent end. But for me it was an overlong and at times painful wait for these miserable assortment of characters to finally get their comeuppance. I can only imagine how hard it was for these actors to navigate the improbable shifts in tone that von Trier wrote in. Especially Dunst (who won Best Actress at the Cannes) who had to feel her way from blushing bride, to disillusioned, spiteful, pessimistic child, to zombie-like invalid, to resigned prophet. There were so many changes in these characters that I had trouble following the paths in which they were taking. As an actor I was very confused.

I will say that visually this film is a masterpiece. The first and last ten minutes of the film were absolutely worthy of the content. The final quarter of Melancholia was actually quite good, but a grueling first and second act, including the punishingly overlong wedding sequence, made the vision moot. This will undoubtedly strike some as a work of art, and come awards season this will be a strong contender, but I take pleasure in knowing that there was Malick's work which was its equal in scope, but its superior in execution and genuine feeling.

2/4