Melancholia Review

Lars von Trier likes to let people know he is well versed in movies.  And not just any movies; he knows the classics and the classic directors by name.  Remember, he’s the one who made Antichrist, a white-knuckling misogynistic schlock-fest complete with all kinds of genital mutilation, and then dedicated it to Andrei Tarkovsky.  This gesture was enough to elicit an eyebrow raise out of me; I’ve always felt Antichrist is the kind of film Tarkovsky would have laughed at. 

But that’s not von Trier’s point.  He wants to operate within the same modes as the masters, and Melancholia is another attempt at being accepted to the narrow canon of filmic greats.  Watching Melancholia, however, is like watching a creative writing major’s senior project: all style and no substance.

I can’t tell you how many times the world ended last year in film, but no apocalypse was captured with such heavy-handed grandiosity like von Trier’s film.  Melancholia is composed of two parts.  The entire film opens with a series of crystal clear shots of space, some colliding planets, Bruegel’s The Hunters in the Snow, some Gregory Crewdson-esque elaborately designed shots, etc.  It sets up many motifs that will be shown later in the film but comes off as stilted and forced.  Excerpts from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde blare operatically.  Von Trier is waxing poetic, and this time his muse is Kubrick.  There’s one thing von Trier didn’t learn in school: the best art isn’t a hodge-podge of nods to past artists.

Then we’re introduced to Justine (de Sade? Come on now) as she prepares for her wedding.  She’s identifiably depressed and spends most of the evening feigning a smile before her fiancé or hiding off in another room with her nephew or screwing a co-worker.  All the while, she keeps her eye on a distant red star in the sky.  The party ends, her fiancé leaves her, and Part Two begins. 

Justine now lives with her sister, Claire, and her husband, John.  Her depression has gone from bad to worse while a gaseous blue planet heads toward Earth.  The planet Melancholia (get it?!) will not hit Earth, so says John, but Claire is overwhelmed with worry.  The majority of Part Two consists of Justine’s inability to live, and Kirsten Dunst does a nice job portraying crippling depression.  Her performance isn’t anything spectacular, but for Dunst, it’s pretty out-of-the-ordinary. 

By the end, Melancholia nears Earth, and Justine begins her rant on how life on Earth needs to end because it’s evil and all that.  This speech is definitely the lowest moment of the film; is this what contemporary, post-9/11 cinema has stooped to?  Wordy, Rod Serling-esque comments on mankind’s inadequacy and doom?  Give me a break.

Arguably the most striking moment in the film occurs after Claire discovers John has committed suicide, though his complete lack of character development makes his death forgettable.  She grabs her son, and in a wholly human moment of panic, runs through a golf course as hail rains from the sky.  If only the film had ended here, but no, von Trier has an agenda.  He wants to blow up the planet.  So in the final scene, we see Earth destroyed.

At this point in his career, von Trier can be considered that guy who knows a lot about film history and very little about execution.  His artistic eye lacks subtlety and taste, and Melancholia is little more than artistic arrogance.