OBLIVION: a review of "Melancholia"

“MELANCHOLIA”
Written and Directed by Lars von Trier
**** (four stars)

“Life is only on Earth…and not for long.”
-Justine

After the end, there is nothing but blackness and silence.

Earlier this year, I announced that legendary filmmaker Terrence Malick’s “The Tree Of Life” would most likely become my favorite film of 2011 for a variety of reasons yet mostly because I just did not imagine that I would possibly see a film within the same year that stretched its artistic reaches and visions further than that film. While I am not upending my earlier proclamation, I will announce that I may have just seen a devastating equal to Malick’s masterpiece.

Uncompromising, unrepentant, and unforgiving, Writer/Director Lars von Trier’s “Melancholia” is one of 2011’s most masterful and furthest reaching cinematic achievements. It is a profoundly frightening experience as von Trier imagines no less than the end of all existence through sequences and images he bookends the film with that are truly some of the most disturbing, sensational and unforgettable images I have seen in many, many years. Yet somehow, the film as a whole did not resonate as a completely nihilistic statement. Dear readers, as you all know very well from me, I have grown to have an extreme distaste and disease with films that depict an apocalypse for pure entertainment purposes, like Roland Emmerich’s terribly inhumane “2012” (2009). Thankfully, von Trier is operating from a most humane perspective. While “Melancholia” is defiantly extremist in its conclusions, the film does indeed conspire to take a disaster and have it play out with real, recognizable people while exploring various stages of human behavior. It is an overwhelming experience and supremely artful to the highest degree. If you are willing to take this ride, I feel that the rewards will be plentiful.

“Melancholia” opens with the music of Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde” set to a series of stunningly gorgeous yet grotesque images that unfold in a speed that I can only describe as “nightmare slow.” We are witness to birds falling from the sky. A horse falling backwards to the ground under biblically dark clouds. A bride traveling through a grim forest with ominous tree branches reaching outwards, strangling her legs and feet, holding her in place. A Mother and child feebly running away from some unseen horror with their feet sinking into the grass like quicksand. All of this and more is intercut with galactic footage of Earth and a larger, blue planet engaged in an interstellar and most likely cataclysmic cosmic ballet.

From this incredible, nearly eight-minute wordless prologue, “Melancholia” is divided into two sections. The first part, entitled “Justine,” focuses entirely upon a lavish wedding reception for the titular character (played by Kirsten Dunst) and her blissfully happy new husband Michael (Alexander Skarsgard). At first, all seems to be very well for the couple as they are introduced as being deliriously in love and laughing heartedly at the feeble attempts for the stretch limousine, in which they are riding, to navigate a narrow path to the reception location. Upon arriving, albeit late, at the massive grounds (which includes an 18 hole golf course) of Justine’s protective older sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), her horribly arrogant Astronomer husband John (an excellent Kiefer Sutherland) and their young son Leo (Cameron Spurr), Justine and Michael go through the myriad rituals of a post wedding celebration. But all is not well despite the enormous opulence on display.

Justine’s genteel Father Dexter (John Hurt) is a flirtatious, unreliable drunk while her Mother Gaby (Charlotte Rampling) is a savagely bitter nihilist who is unable to keep herself from publicly voicing her endless disapproval of the entire institution of marriage. Additionally, Justine is constantly hounded by her employer Jack (a terrific Stellan Skarsgard), to somehow conjure up a new advertising promotion on the spot.

As the evening wears on, the social constraints and expectations increasingly take their toll upon Justine who repeatedly exits the reception to find a sense of unattainable solace. Yet, an unusual new star in the sky has begun to capture Justine’s attention…

In the second section of the film set a short time after the reception and entitled “Claire,” Justine has collapsed into a debilitating depression and returns to her sister’s castle grounds for convalescence. At the same time, the family is transfixed by the arrival of Melancholia, a rogue planet scheduled to reach Earth within five days. John, the man of Science, is convinced that Melancholia will “fly by” the earth creating an astronomical event for the ages. Yet, as Melancholia moves closer, Claire grows increasingly unhinged, as she fears the two planets will collide, thus ending all existence. Surprisingly and conversely, Justine grows more serene, calmer, accepting and fearless regarding this potentially catastrophic event.

As with several grim recent films I have seen in recent months most notably Jeff Nichols’ excellent “Take Shelter,” Lars von Trier’s “Melancholia” is a merging of a person’s fractured psychological state with a more widely enveloping doom. It is a film that simultaneously functions as an intimate family drama, a dark satire of social bad manners as well as a science fiction disaster film that left me, and the audience I saw it with, motionless and in complete silence. No one rose from his or her seat until deeply within the end credit scroll and even then, every movement was made at a snail’s pace. Initially, I felt it to be a film like Darren Aronofsky’s brilliant yet brutal “Requiem For A Dream” (2000) that I could absolutely, positively never sit through a second time no matter how brilliant the experience was. But, after having settled myself with the experience over the last few days, I realize that no only could I sit through “Melancholia” a second time, I actually want to sit through it a second time.

First of all, I have to admit that during the “Justine” half of the film, I found myself growing fatigued and a tad bored. I felt some impatience with the first half of this film as the wedding party seemed to just drag on and on but once von Trier placed us within the superbly executed second half, the drudgery of the first sections became that much clearer, most especially and importantly in regards to Justine’s state of mind and extinguished spirit. At its core, “Melancholia” is a psychological portrait and metaphor for the crippling disease of depression and perhaps the devastation of suicide and death as well. I am gathering that von Trier, who has reportedly succumbed to severe depressive episodes himself, is suggesting to us that depression is not simply a slightly more extreme version of “the blues” (although the planet Melancholia is a luminous blue). Depression, at its most paralyzing, feels as if a planet has just extinguished you. And here is where the vivid intensity of Kirsten Dunst comes incredibly into play.

Kirsten Dunst is an actress I have admired for many years and while she has continued to surprise me with her depth, I have to say that I have not ever seen her with such weight and gravity. While she does not elicit a performance that is a showstopper on the level of Natalie Portman’s career best performance in Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan” (2010), Dunst is an unexpected yet absolutely perfect conduit for von Trier’s exploration of mental illness. As Justine, Kirsten Dunst portrays a young woman who seemingly has everything going for her from an adoring husband, wealth, beauty, to a career promotion, but ultimately, she loses every shred, most notably her mind and whatever faith she ever held in the nature of life itself. Dunst’s performance is not one that depicts depression as a means of hysteria. It is a performance where she evokes the physical debilitation of depression where even the most seemingly simple tasks like taking a bath are impossible and even eating a favorite meal is filled with despair (“It tastes like ashes,” she weeps during a family dinner). I was amazed with the way Dunst dropped her vocal range a few registers, brining forth a new hardness and coldness.

I also found it very interesting that within the film’s family dynamic, Justine, who seems to be purely American, exists within a family of Europeans, just one element that contributes to Justine’s sense of displacement in the world. Near the end of the film, as she has a tense conversation with Claire regarding how she feels that there is no other speck of existence in the universe, Claire questions Justine as to how she can be certain about such a belief. Justine simply and plainly replies, “I know things.” Recalling the film's prologue, this statement oddly stations Justine as some sort of a prophet (or keeping with the science fiction element, she may also function as an alien), another stance that places her severely outside of everyone else in her life. Kirsten Dunst delivers a performance of subtle power and all of the accolades she has received thus far, and is bound to receive during awards season, are fully deserved.

As Justine’s sister Claire, Charlotte Gainsbourg is Kirsten Dunst’s equal as she is the lifelong caretaker who finds herself in need once her own existential anxiety upends her during the second half of the film. Where Justine, I would imagine to be somewhat impenetrable for many viewers, the character of Claire is more relatable as her vision of the world reflects my own, making the horror of the end of the world entirely shared. While not forsaking any conceptual themes from the film’s first half, Lars von Trier makes the second half exist as a nearly unbearable thriller.

Believe it or not, I found myself often thinking about James Cameron’s “Titanic” (1997) during this part of the film in regards to its structure and how it contributed heavily to the terrifying nature of what lies ahead for the characters. Like Cameron’s epic, the second half of “Melancholia” builds tremendously well because of the knowledge the audience has already gained from the film’s striking prologue. As the planets merge closer to potential collision, the characters and the audience are placed within the same emotional and existential boat: death is coming and there is absolutely, positively nothing that anyone can do about it. Lars von Trier finds many simple and brutally effective ways to increase the tension. The sounds and sights of anxious birds and horses was a great touch. But, my favorite was the simple device of a child’s astronomical tool, nothing more than coiled wire on a stick, that is used to detect the physical proximity of Melancholia to Earth. Every time Claire used it to check and see if the planet was either closer or further away, I could hardly bear to see the results although I was sitting safely in the movie theater. And that is precisely the wicked cinematic magic Lars von Trier has created. For the characters, Melancholia is approaching and they can do nothing but await their demise and for us in the audience, we know what will happen and despite how much we wish for relief or a different outcome, we know it will never happen.

The brilliance of “Melancholia” is carried so firmly by the fact that the first part of the film informs the second part and vice versa. With regards to the wedding reception section, we are immersed in all manner of surprisingly cruel behavior. All of the pettiness and horrible behavior those characters inflict upon each other and furthermore, von Trier argues, the horrible behavior we inflict upon each other in our daily lives completely enhances Justine’s belief that “Life is evil. The Earth is evil. No one will miss it.” In Justine’s mind, the arrival of Melancholia is nothing less than the absolution of our problems, foibles, pressures, concerns and whatever else that clouds our minds each and every day, including our own sense of self-importance in a merciless universe. In that shining apocalypse, our problems mean nothing and in the end, they never meant anything in the first place. It is all futile when all we know becomes an endless nothingness. For a woman who feels as she, a person with nothing to lose, the end of the world comes as a blessing.

Whether becoming completely engulfed by one’s own inner demons to the point of incapacitation or being wholly devoured by a mysterious planet, Lars von Trier’s “Melancholia” is an overwhelming experience. The evocative cinematography is consistently outstanding and like moments within Malick’s “The Tree Of Life,” I felt the ghost of Stanley Kubrick hovering nearby with its usage of repetitive classical music augmenting interstellar imagery.

But “Melancholia” is no mere homage as it is purely a Lars von Trier experience. I greatly appreciated von Trier’s boldness during a time when most movies don’t even know how to be bold anymore. He fearlessly takes this film all the way to the wall, to its most logical conclusion, and like Justine in the face of annihilation, Lars von Trier never blinks.

SAVAGE POSTSCRIPT:

Like Kevin Smith’s “Red State,” you have many options of seeing “Melancholia” if you so desire. In addition to its surprisingly small theatrical run, you may rent the film via your cable provider’s On Demand feature or you may even rent the film through i-Tunes, Amazon.com and I believe that you can stream the film through a Playstation system as well. For me, nothing is like the big screen but if it is not playing in your area, try to find the biggest screen that you are able to find and let this movie take you over!