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Two sisters find their already strained relationship challenged as a mysterious new planet threatens to collide into the Earth.
Kirsten Dunst: Justine
When going to see a Lars Von Trier film you know you are in for something different, something unusual, something truly shocking. Ranging from the emotional Dancer in the Dark to a stylish Dogville and a terrifying Anti-Christ, his latest offering again doesn't disappoint the fans or newcomers. The latest offering being a drama and disaster film: Let us reflect on Melancholia and I will do my best to convey my thoughts on his latest work.
Very cleverly Melancholia begins with an artistic, slow motion montage which depicts the happenings in the film. This deposition results in a very symbolic offering, an offering of biblical proportions. Insects and animals, birds and horses, are falling and behaving in a crazed manner while Justin stands in a somewhat prophetic way with arms outstretched.
Ranging from raw emotion, to reflections on nature, on protecting animals and children (Claire holding her son while sinking into the earth of the golf course: Attempting to escape the inescapable), to the different stances regarding life differentiating the two sisters.
The film taunts us into wondering whether the world is ending or whether it is all a manifestation regarding the emotional state of Justine.
There is a chilling nihilistic strain and mist which drifts in from the dying proceedings. It almost feels as the film progresses we are pulled into a tomb-like atmosphere brought forth by the incoming planet Melancholia.
Kirsten Dunst who plays Justin gives the performance of her career. Perhaps her best to date as she fully absorbs herself into the troubled character.
The first half of the film fully concentrates itself on her wedding, it shows us her family, her boss, and very importantly her frame of mind.
Justine is a successful advertising copywriter who is getting married to Michael (Alexander Skarsgård). you would assume it would be the happiest day of her life. The wedding which is organized by her sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and brother-in-law John (Kiefer Sutherland) is a lavishly elegant and epic affair held at a very isolated and large Swedish chateau. After the opening montage we come to Justine and Michael’s limo which can’t turn a corner to get them where they need to be. An example of the film having small doses of comedy and variety for us to consume.
John Hurt hiding spoons and flirting with women called Betty, the Wedding planner played by Udo Kier refusing to look at the bride because she ruins the proceedings by going for baths and disappearing frequently, and her mother Gaby played by Charlotte Rampling setting the par for crazy in the family. The send-up of bourgeois self-satisfaction that is surely implicit in having John deny the possibility of apocalypse: ''Trust me, I’m a scientist.'': It all is very bizarre, and very amusing. It sucks the audience in because we become interested yet accustomed to the characters and their habits.
Lars Von Trier is simply brilliant, though less flattering, a director of leading female actresses. His attention to the female face — and the rapture of suffering it can convey — is rivaled only by Carl Dreyer in The Passion of Joan of Arc.
Dunst, realizing the potential she showed in The Virgin Suicides and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, draws strength from on her own public and personal displays of depression to portray a woman who is both young and old, wise and immature, deadened and very much alive to the dark ways of the world. The dual nature of a troubled young woman. Restless and bereft who has become hopeless with the grasping of the breathless truth.
There is one extraordinary scene, where she is shown lying naked by a stream bathing in the obliterating force of the approaching Melancholia. She is bathing in the light, the sadness which is consuming her and the planet. This is surely a metaphor for her deep depression destroying her life and everything around her, as well as being a straight forward physical rendition.
Melancholia isn't just a film. It is a piece of art. Refreshing and pure. Unusual and rewarding. It appears in a time when people need to be reminded that film is still an art form. Lars Von Trier gives us yet again another reminder from his imaginatively daring mind.
Kirsten Dunst gives an award worthy performance and Charlotte Gainsbourg again shows her versatility as an actress after her crazed role in Anti-Christ. Lars Von Trier has us falling in love with his female leads yet again by directing them in ways which wouldn't be amiss amongst the renaissance painters of old. He makes them shine. Melancholia shines. A sad, depressing reminder that life is a temporary asphyxiation. That life is special yet short. That we will hold on to what we love for as long as we can. This is a journey into the many facets of the psyche and regarding existence itself.
''All I know is life on earth is evil. I know we’re alone.''
9/10
