Dir. Lars von Trier, Denmark/Sweden/France/ Germany, 2011, 136 mins
Cast: Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Kiefer Sutherland,
Review by Carol Allen
This is the film which made headlines at this year’s Cannes Film Festival for von Trier’s unfortunate remarks about Nazism and Dunst’s best actress award.
The Melancholia of the title is not just the state of mind suffered by Justine (Dunst) but is also the name given to a big planet, which is heading towards our earth and threatening to wipe us all out.
The idea of the threat is interestingly suggested in a series of images at the beginning, most notably a formal garden, where the shadows of the trees on one side point in a different direction to those on the other. We then move into what must be one of the most protracted wedding reception sequences in film history. With no indication as which area of the world we are in, the film is set in some sort of extravagant stately home with extensive parklands and a very good golf course, we’re told.
The bride Justine looks beautiful but seems totally uninterested in the proceedings – at one point, she disappears to her room to have a bath, totally forgetting she’s supposed to be cutting the wedding cake. She’s also totally uninteresting. Dunst is normally a good actress so I presume she was doing what the director told her to do. The only time she comes to life is when she tells her advertising agency boss (Stellan Skarsgård) a few unpleasant truths about what she thinks about him. Her estranged parents (Charlotte Rampling and John Hurt) have a bit of a row over old grievances, her sister Claire (Gainsbourg) tries to jolly Justine up a bit and Claire’s husband (Sutherland), who owns the stately pile and is paying for the event, grumbles about how much it’s costing. And her hapless bridegroom (Alexander Skarsgård) gets ditched, not at the altar but in the bedroom. Nobody actually talks at all about the impending disaster, which is odd – that’s saved for the second half of the film, which concentrates on Claire, who at least seems to have a bit of life in her. Justine, it appears, shares what is probably the opinion of the film maker, that we’re the only life in the universe and if we’re all snuffed out, so what? There’ll be nobody left to care anyway.
The second half is a bit livelier, in that Claire is concerned about the possible end of the world, even though her husband tries to reassure her that the approaching planet is going to miss us and there’s nothing to worry about. The whole thing is beautiful to look at – the cinematography (by Manuel Alberto Claro) outshines the action by several hundred watts and the final shot of the film is a masterpiece. Apart from those opening scenes and a bit of CGI of Melancholia getting bigger in the sky, Von Trier makes no effort to make the disaster convincing or realistic. There’s no interest from the characters in what’s happening elsewhere on the planet outside their closed little world and the weather too, apart from a little rain and snow, seems to be totally unaffected by this big mass approaching the earth. In view of the fact that our own little moon controls the tides, such an event as this would surely cause tsunamis and other weather events on such a mega scale that the characters wouldn’t have time to sit around chewing the fat? Von Trier however is unconcerned with such mundane scientific realities. His sole concern seems to be to impress us with pretty pictures and persuade us to share his pessimism. All he succeeds in doing is nearly boring us to death.
[cinemabase tt1527186 video_player]
