Melancholia (2011) Review

By Jason Haskins

Love him or hate him, you can’t dispute Lars von Trier’s brash brilliance at visual filmmaking. Fresh off his controversial Antichrist, he returned to the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year making statements of Nazi sympathy, wanting to shoot a pornographic film with Kirsten Dunst, and saying other things that made him sound like a dick. If you look past all of these attention-grabbing ploys of his and examine the film he has made, Melancholia, you will see one of the most interesting movies released this year.

The plot revolves around a rogue planet that has been discovered hiding behind the sun for years and it’s epic arc towards the Earth, leading to ultimate destruction at the time of impact. Right in the middle of this disaster is a wedding party for Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and Michael (Alexander Skarsgard) at Justine’s sister’s large estate and the aftermath and depression after the wedding. As the planet moves closer to Earth, you subtlety watch the disintegration of a family that was already disintegrating—and bear witness to one of the most terrifying disasters of all time.

Whenever I try and describe this film to people it automatically gets a science fiction nomenclature slapped onto it because of the whole planetary plot, but that couldn’t be further from the case. This is a movie cataloging depression and the insane hole it causes. The drama plays out in the grandest sense and makes the last thirty minutes of the movie or so not just the best part of the film by far, but also one of the most terrifying experiences von Trier has ever created in any of his films.

The star-studded cast do a fabulous job with von Trier’s style—particularly Kirsten Dunst, who stars primarily in the first part of the film. She’s not only breathtaking here, but gives a performance that unlike anything she’s done before and has the entire burden of the movie resting solely on her shoulders. Kiefer Sutherland plays her overbearing brother-in-law to frustrating results and Charlotte Gainsbourg plays her sister who’s most upset about the planetary collision than and is trying to keep it from her young son.

Some aspects of the film are frustrating, especially what Dunst’s character does and acts like, but it’s a pitch-perfect examination of the disease. Von Trier infamously wrote this at a dark period in his life and he breathes a certain air of literal melancholia into every frame—heightened by the use of Robert Wagner’s prelude to Tristan und Isolde, which is quite a stunning choice for the movie’s themes. The shots are all beautifully photographed and has such a rich darkness to it all that aids in the performances and scariness of the film.

Melancholia will not appeal to everyone because of the subject matter and truly depressing nature of the movie, but it’s well worth the watch because of Dunst’s growth as an actress and Lars von Trier’s continuous investigation of interesting ideas. The last part of the movie was extremely touching and the whole sum of the movie is quite unsettling in ways only von Trier can really delve into efficiently. That said, there are those who will certainly not like it, but I have to say that anything different like this at the cinema is always a welcome option.

4.5 out of 5 stars