Verdict: One of the most visually stunning films I’ve ever seen. However I felt way more emotional about the visual and aesthetic aspects of the film, rather than the characters, who were often difficult to empathise with. However, maybe the potential lack of audience engagement forms part of the film’s narrative.After all the press attention the film received after Von Trier’s controversial comments at Cannes, I knew it would be bizarre, and probably provocative. After having seen it, I can now manage to get past some of the crazy things the director said in various press conferences. He should stick to making absolutely brilliant films like this.
The opening sequence of Melancholia is comprised of a series of super-slow motion shots of various scenes we see later in the film, and other evocative shots. The enhanced quality and colour of the shots is utterly exquisite and demonstrates in just a few short moments that Von Trier is a film-maker at the top of his game.
Kirsten Dunst won the Best Actress prize at Cannes this year for her role as Justine, a bride who is struck down by melancholia on the day of her wedding. Dunst is indeed brilliant in this role, perfectly capturing the fluctuation of moods and emotions of those who suffer from this affliction. Her performance perhaps stands out as she is usually seen in more upbeat and sunny roles – something which makes Justine an even greater achievement.
In my opinion however, the real star of the film is Charlotte Gainsbourg, who plays Justine’s sister Claire. I’ve seen a lot of negative reviews of Gainsbourg’s performance, with one user ‘paulo’ on timeout.com saying ‘Gainsbourg is poor but it’s hard for her not to be with the lines she’s been given.’ For me, this is missing Von Trier’s point in a big way. The climax of the film pits the two sisters against each other at a moment when they are at their most unified. Justine’s state of total calm and detachment opposes Claire’s desperation to save her son and her own existence. Their clash personifies the imminent clash of Earth and Melancholia, a perfect metaphor used by Von Trier. For me, Gainsbourg uses body language, facial expressions and implied emotions to imply the angst a mother feels at knowing her son will never grow up.
The strongest human reaction I felt was when John (an unemotional Kiefer Sutherland), Claire’s husband suddenly kills himself off screen. Not that you didn’t see it coming. It would take the world’s greatest optimist, or the world’s biggest idiot to not expect Melancholia to come back and clobber Earth. We saw it foreshadowed in the opening montage, and what is a Von Trier film without great catastrophe and violence? Nonetheless, I felt the whole sub-plot of John’s assurance they were safe and his subsequent despair and suicide was well dealt with, on the whole. Claire’s restrained reaction however was not in keeping with her actions throughout the film, and after the discovery of John’s body was built up for so long the fall-out from it was virtually non-existent.
On the whole the human interest aspect of the narrative of Melancholia is patchy at best. The first chapter of the film is an outsider’s view of melancholia as a condition and how it affects the sufferer. The sub-plot of family feuds at a wedding is an often amusing side-track that adds little to the emotional message of the film. The second chapter focusses not only on how the condition affects those around the sufferer, but adds the impending collision of planets metaphor to the mix. The focus is mostly on Claire and her hysteria, with occasional cross-reference and comparison with Justine’s calm and collectedness.
Von Trier has said he was inspired to make this film after noticing how depressed people often react calmly in the most desperate and traumatic of situations. Though that is explicitly noticeable in the film, I’m not sure if the underlying message comes through. The main attraction of the film is its aesthetics. It’s a visual triumph that some may say champions style over substance. Whatever the case, I thoroughly enjoyed watching Melancholia and was left stunned for hours afterwards. It’s the mark of a good film – and indeed every Von Trier masterpiece – that it sparks discussion and argument. Whatever people’s conclusions I doubt many can say this isn’t a beautiful piece of art that impacts everyone.
