Melancholia

A couple of years ago, I went to see a Lars Von Trier film called Antichrist. I’ve never forgotten the experience, and I suspect it’ll be a long time before I do. In addition to all the hardcore sexual material, the overwhelmingly painful acts of violence depicted, and the film’s beautifully artistic presentation, this movie had so much going on thematically that I left Cinema 21 feeling thoroughly skullfucked.

That movie explored conflict between man and woman, between good and evil, between religion and science, man and nature, chaos and order, hope and nihilism, the list goes on and on. The whole film was just a series of differing viewpoints, each of them clashing together at the speed of light, getting violently and graphically smashed to pieces in the process. It’s like the Large Hadron Collider of movies, is what I’m saying.

So here I am, two years later, fresh from a Cinema 21 screening of Von Trier’s latest. Unfortunately, I found myself disappointed by the fact that Melancholia suffers the exact opposite problem as its predecessor: One had far too much going on, and the other doesn’t have nearly enough.

It seems rather strange to say that this film doesn’t have enough going on, considering that it opens with the world’s destruction. Seriously, the eponymous Melancholia is a planet-sized object that’s somehow entered our atmosphere and got on a collision course with Earth. This is shown to us through a dazzling prologue which shows the destruction of Earth through breathtaking music and elaborately staged slo-mo shots. Then the title card comes up and the rest of the story is told to us in flashback.

On the one hand, this is a brilliant way to open a movie. The sequence is phenomenal and it literally starts the film with a very impressive bang. On the other hand, opening a story with a declaration of how it’s going to end (which is a time-honored narrative device, by the way) radically shifts the focus of the story. Without any surprise to be gained from the destination, the journey has to be all the more compelling. Let’s see how that works out.

Kirsten Dunst is the star, here playing the role of Justine. She’s just gotten married to Michael, played by Alexander Skarsgard. Incidentally, Alexander is the eldest son of Stellan Skarsgard, who appears here as Michael’s best man and Justine’s boss. Anyway, Justine’s matron of honor is her sister, Claire, played by Charlotte Gainsbourg. The wedding was paid for by Claire’s wealthy husband, Jack, played by Keifer Sutherland.

As the movie’s first half proceeds and the wedding reception continues, we’re introduced to characters played by John Hurt, Udo Kier, Jesper Christensen, and other such fine actors. Everyone seems happy — the bride most of all — and there’s a ton of great character development tempered with some nice comedy relief.

Then the mother of the bride had to open her damnfool mouth.

The sole killjoy in the wedding is Justine’s mother, here played by Charlotte Rampling. She divorced a long time ago, and holds such a dim view of marriage that she can’t admit even the slightest possibility of her daughter finding wedded bliss. In fact, it seems like she came to the wedding specifically to sabotage it.

Anyway, the moment her mom is done with a speech — roughly fifteen minutes in, mind you — Justine basically turns into a vegetable. She’s over the moon to be married one moment, and she’s in a terrible depression the next. When we first meet her, she’s trying to drive the limo hired for her wedding. Ten minutes later, she can barely string two sentences together. She goes from happy embraces with loved ones to alienating herself entirely in literally no time flat.

Even worse is that we never learn exactly why Justine had such an adverse reaction to her mother’s words, or even if the ill wishes had anything to do with it. It’s implied that Melancholia’s arrival has made her nihilistic, but that can’t be right since Melancholia is never mentioned at any point in the movie’s first half after the prologue. Because there’s no given reason for the depression, all the many discussions and pep talks about the matter just keep treading the same ground.

And here’s the kicker: This goes on through the rest of the movie. The whole movie — especially the first half — is comprised entirely of Justine acting all lethargic and her loved ones trying in vain to figure out what’s wrong. This angle would probably have worked if it was Justine gradually coming to terms with Melancholia’s arrival and making peace with it in her own fashion, but no. The change is so instantaneous, so unexplained, and so unwavering that there isn’t a story left to be told.

Now, to be fair, the second half of the story shifts the focus onto Claire and tries to tell her story. The only problem is that she doesn’t have a story to tell either. None of her actions have any noticeable effect, and she doesn’t have anything resembling a development arc. She starts out deathly afraid of Melancholia, and she ends up deathly afraid of Melancholia. Neither she nor her sister learn or grow in any notable way, which subsequently makes the film grind along at a snail’s pace. The journey is entirely pointless and uneventful, which means that when the ending finally comes, it’s just a bunch of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Melancholia is a movie in desperate need of a plot. The symbolism is rich, the visuals are stupendous from start to finish, the score is wonderful, the cast is outstanding, they all give amazing performances, and the script is full of such themes as denial, acceptance, hope, nihilism, joy, sadness, and trust in authority. There are clearly a lot of great ideas here, with a novel premise that offers so many possibilities for some wonderful stories. Unfortunately, the main characters’ development arcs are so mishandled that the story becomes interminably long and tedious.

Better luck next time, Mr. Von Trier.