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Lars Von Trier's Melancholia

Written by Jonathan Jacobs

Any Google search will inform inquisitors that "melancholia" is a severe mental disorder characterized by sadness, self-reproach and deep depression. Writer/Director Lars Von Trier takes this psychological condition or concept to an entirely new level. In Melancholia, a previously unseen planet (hiding behind the sun) has entered the Milky Way Galaxy and is on a collision course for Earth. Justine (Kirsten Dunst) has planned her wedding and her mental breakdown to coincide with this Earth-shattering event. In essence, Lars makes her a harbinger of doom and he conforms her body perfectly in a last hour's macabre dance. To really whet your appetites, I am obliged to mention that Dunst appears in the nude several times. Not only is she ravishingly full-figured, Lars draws out her inner artistry. He makes Dunst into a real life contemporary piece of artwork in all her naked glory.

After the preliminaries in painstaking slow motion, Justine's wedding begins as her sister and brother in law's estate in the country. She is marrying Michael (Alexander Skarsgard), an attractive and successful man by any measure, but her heart does not seem to be complying with the occasion. During the ceremony and the reception she disappears from time to time. In one instance she takes a bath. In another she almost seduces her husband and then denies him in the heat of the moment. Justine has intimate encounters with her father, her sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), her brother-in-law John (Kiefer Sutherland), her nephew Leo (Cameron Spurr), and others. Each conversation is estranged and bizarre. Even her boss (Stellan Skarsgard) is insulted and turned away in one of her fits. Nothing is right with Justine psychologically. Her behavior is textbook melancholia only brought on suddenly and with no revealed back story. When the wedding collapses on account of her infidelity and mental breakdown, a brief pause unfolds so that the second half of the story may begin.

Part II is about Claire and John's final five days. John has miscalculated about Melancholia's trajectory and has essentially wasted his family's final days on the planet. Humanity is about to become extinct and we are privy to the final hours of a few people's lives. Their reactions are a mixture of fear, regret, reproach, panic and sadness. Justine and Claire become closer than ever, but surprisingly Justine is the strong sister. Claire is a total mess. She cannot come to terms with the truth. Mankind is about to vanish from the universe. Rather than broadening the story to include news stories and scenes of mass chaos, Lars chooses instead to focus his directorial lens on the granular lives of a few people in all their discontent. It appears as though no iota of irony is wasted as the characters succumb to melancholia and ultimately to Melancholia (the planet).

Melancholia is not easy to grade or to evaluate. The characters spend their last days relaxing and denying the truth. Only Justine recognizes that doomsday is nigh and she faces it phlegmatically. Melancholia is essentially the film industry's version of a Picasso or a Dali or a Matisse. They were all brilliant and heralded painters but their artwork is not for everyone, and that is the Catch 22 of this picture. Is it brilliant or unwatchable? Artistic or ordinary? Magnificent or mundane? To me, though I did not exactly savor Lars' offering, I recognize its brilliance. Will the general public? I suspect that Kiefer Sutherland and Kirsten Dunst will earn high marks for their unbelievably crafty performances, but the film as an entirety is tough to watch. With a sense of impending disaster it simply might be too depressing for most audiences. As for Lars Von Trier, this is quote an addition to his growing portfolio of intrigues.