Another doomsday film you might say and of course, in a way it is as everyone dies, that is to say the whole of humanity, not only the main protagonists in the film.
This is a film where the germ to the story could be found during a period of depression that Lars von Trier - the director - experienced some time before the filming. During that period he found that people experiencing a depression often stay calm during serious and dramatic situations.
Having worked within the psychiatry, I can say that this is true to a certain degree but this is of course connected to the fact that the depressed during his or her depression, already is experiencing "the end of the world" as perceived by her or him. No light, only darkness and no way out of the situation. This makes it easier to "stay calm" when something horrible occurs as one already is numbed.
The film opens with a couple who are going to get married - Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and Michael (Alexander Skarsgård). On their way up to the house where they are going to celebrate with the family, their car gets stuck and they have to walk the rest of the road to the waiting guests.
Already here the problems start, an obstacle, although not insurmountable, paves the way to more obstacles, both physical and psychological.
The hosts are Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and John (Kiefer Sutherland), the sister and brother-in-law of the bride. Claire is a somewhat neurotic person, seeking perfection in everything she undertakes, John is a very rational and impatient individual, not at all fond of his sister-in-law and her whims.
When arriving to the house the bride first of all visits her horses, as they are more important than the guests - of course. The horses also play an important role later on in the film.
At last inside, one starts to think of Festen (The Celebration) by Thomas Vinterberg and of course there are some turbulence:
The father of Claire and Justin - Dexter (John Hurt) - a more or less alcoholic individual with a laissez-faire attitude, flirting with younger women, neglecting his acrimonious wife Gaby (Charlotte Rampling, being wonderful in this role). Gaby openly displays her miscontent with everything and everyone, declaring that she doesn't believe in marriages, raising questions about what she's doing there.
On the same time Michaels father Jack (Stellan Skarsgård) - being both the future father-in-law to Justine and her boss at an advertising company - is a real vexation. During the evening he tries to force Justine to come up with a fantastic slogan for their next campaign, something that aggravates Justine's state of mind.
Justine is gradually entering a state of depression, and this makes her act - what in other people's eyes would be considered as - irrational, leaving the party, taking a bath, strolling in the garden, hiding, neglecting the guests, the hosts but most important of all: Her husband.
During her depressive, melancholic state, she also perceive things in another way compared to the non-depressive and this leads her to notice the planet approaching the Earth, something the others also know but perceive differently. Depressive people are very sensitive and are closer to their emotions and senses, having a higher degree of EQ, using a word being somewhat controversial in some people's eyes/ears.
Most people around her though, look at this phenomenon from a rationalist standpoint, meaning that they put trust in the scientists and their predictions about this celestial body and that it will pass the Earth on a distance, not colliding or causing any major natural catastrophies.
John is among those people. He is a scientifically, rationally thinking person, convinced of the fact that this planet will pass, having himself made some calculations supporting this theory.
Claire, being the more neurotic, organized person, seeking order in nature and in other people, trying to reinforce this by her own action, is caught in between. Her sense of order leads her to believe in her husband and the arguments he put forward but her neurotic, anxious part is still having doubts about the correctness in the scientific explanations.
When Michael disappears, having abandoned his dreams about a marriage, these three characters - Justine, Claire and John - are left to themselves. A fourth individual are with them, namely the son of Justine and John.
The Rationalist John, is the one who gives up first, when realizing that the calculations he - and other scientists - has made are wrong. This leads him to commit suicide, thus displaying how fragile our rationalistic, scientific thinking is, being a 'mythos' making the believers faith and will to live collapse, when their cosmology is proven wrong.
The Ordinal, Systematic Claire and her ambivalence between the rationalistic thinking, her doubts and wishes to set everything right, both between her and Justine as well as for her son and their future, tries to escape when realizing the terrible truth about 'The End of the World'.
She has all the time tried to 'cruise' between her husband, his contempt for Justine and their mother and her sister and her depressions, trying to help the latter and trying to stabilize everything aorund her. When this is not possible, her only support and the strongest person in this process is her sister Justine.
The Melancholic Justine has since long accepted her faith and the faith of mankind.
On the same time she has early on been aware of the consequences and therefore acted in a way that lead to Michael leaving her as their relationship - seen in the light of her depressiveness and the future catastrophy - was doomed to fail.
The film refers to several similar films in the same genre.
The Threat from the Universe and the possible extinction of mankind caused by meteors or planets colliding with Earth is a recurrent theme in the cinemas.
If not meteors or planets, mankind are threatened by 'aliens' but in this film - contrary to Independence Day and the likes - no hero (or heroes) arrives in the last minute to set everything alright. That is in my opinion one of the best qualities of this film including some very beautiful sceneries in a somewhat renaissance-like style, contrasting a more greyish or ordinary aesthetic, making it a stylistically beautiful film, dealing both with relations, our fragility as individuals on Earth and in relation to our infinite(?) Universe, the importance of trying to see beyond the daily trivialities when facing greater problems but also the problem in seeing what is important and what is not and that the decisive factors for these decisions not always are easily detected.
In spite of this, the film was a disappointment. A much more refined and interesting story could have been built around the original idea of this script.
As for now the photo is perhaps the part that stays on in your memory, although the acting partly is very good, the actors well known and the end really THE END.
This is a film where the germ to the story could be found during a period of depression that Lars von Trier - the director - experienced some time before the filming. During that period he found that people experiencing a depression often stay calm during serious and dramatic situations.
Having worked within the psychiatry, I can say that this is true to a certain degree but this is of course connected to the fact that the depressed during his or her depression, already is experiencing "the end of the world" as perceived by her or him. No light, only darkness and no way out of the situation. This makes it easier to "stay calm" when something horrible occurs as one already is numbed.
The film opens with a couple who are going to get married - Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and Michael (Alexander Skarsgård). On their way up to the house where they are going to celebrate with the family, their car gets stuck and they have to walk the rest of the road to the waiting guests.
Already here the problems start, an obstacle, although not insurmountable, paves the way to more obstacles, both physical and psychological.
The hosts are Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and John (Kiefer Sutherland), the sister and brother-in-law of the bride. Claire is a somewhat neurotic person, seeking perfection in everything she undertakes, John is a very rational and impatient individual, not at all fond of his sister-in-law and her whims.When arriving to the house the bride first of all visits her horses, as they are more important than the guests - of course. The horses also play an important role later on in the film.
At last inside, one starts to think of Festen (The Celebration) by Thomas Vinterberg and of course there are some turbulence:
The father of Claire and Justin - Dexter (John Hurt) - a more or less alcoholic individual with a laissez-faire attitude, flirting with younger women, neglecting his acrimonious wife Gaby (Charlotte Rampling, being wonderful in this role). Gaby openly displays her miscontent with everything and everyone, declaring that she doesn't believe in marriages, raising questions about what she's doing there.
On the same time Michaels father Jack (Stellan Skarsgård) - being both the future father-in-law to Justine and her boss at an advertising company - is a real vexation. During the evening he tries to force Justine to come up with a fantastic slogan for their next campaign, something that aggravates Justine's state of mind.
Justine is gradually entering a state of depression, and this makes her act - what in other people's eyes would be considered as - irrational, leaving the party, taking a bath, strolling in the garden, hiding, neglecting the guests, the hosts but most important of all: Her husband.
During her depressive, melancholic state, she also perceive things in another way compared to the non-depressive and this leads her to notice the planet approaching the Earth, something the others also know but perceive differently. Depressive people are very sensitive and are closer to their emotions and senses, having a higher degree of EQ, using a word being somewhat controversial in some people's eyes/ears.Most people around her though, look at this phenomenon from a rationalist standpoint, meaning that they put trust in the scientists and their predictions about this celestial body and that it will pass the Earth on a distance, not colliding or causing any major natural catastrophies.
John is among those people. He is a scientifically, rationally thinking person, convinced of the fact that this planet will pass, having himself made some calculations supporting this theory.Claire, being the more neurotic, organized person, seeking order in nature and in other people, trying to reinforce this by her own action, is caught in between. Her sense of order leads her to believe in her husband and the arguments he put forward but her neurotic, anxious part is still having doubts about the correctness in the scientific explanations.
When Michael disappears, having abandoned his dreams about a marriage, these three characters - Justine, Claire and John - are left to themselves. A fourth individual are with them, namely the son of Justine and John.
The Rationalist John, is the one who gives up first, when realizing that the calculations he - and other scientists - has made are wrong. This leads him to commit suicide, thus displaying how fragile our rationalistic, scientific thinking is, being a 'mythos' making the believers faith and will to live collapse, when their cosmology is proven wrong.
The Ordinal, Systematic Claire and her ambivalence between the rationalistic thinking, her doubts and wishes to set everything right, both between her and Justine as well as for her son and their future, tries to escape when realizing the terrible truth about 'The End of the World'.
She has all the time tried to 'cruise' between her husband, his contempt for Justine and their mother and her sister and her depressions, trying to help the latter and trying to stabilize everything aorund her. When this is not possible, her only support and the strongest person in this process is her sister Justine.
The Melancholic Justine has since long accepted her faith and the faith of mankind.
On the same time she has early on been aware of the consequences and therefore acted in a way that lead to Michael leaving her as their relationship - seen in the light of her depressiveness and the future catastrophy - was doomed to fail.
The film refers to several similar films in the same genre.
The Threat from the Universe and the possible extinction of mankind caused by meteors or planets colliding with Earth is a recurrent theme in the cinemas.
If not meteors or planets, mankind are threatened by 'aliens' but in this film - contrary to Independence Day and the likes - no hero (or heroes) arrives in the last minute to set everything alright. That is in my opinion one of the best qualities of this film including some very beautiful sceneries in a somewhat renaissance-like style, contrasting a more greyish or ordinary aesthetic, making it a stylistically beautiful film, dealing both with relations, our fragility as individuals on Earth and in relation to our infinite(?) Universe, the importance of trying to see beyond the daily trivialities when facing greater problems but also the problem in seeing what is important and what is not and that the decisive factors for these decisions not always are easily detected.
In spite of this, the film was a disappointment. A much more refined and interesting story could have been built around the original idea of this script.
As for now the photo is perhaps the part that stays on in your memory, although the acting partly is very good, the actors well known and the end really THE END.
(Photo Kirsten Dunst in bride gown copie from: http://www.lepoint.fr/images/2011/05/18/melancholia-kirsten-dunst-lars-von-trier-cannes-316047-jpg_196687.JPG)
(Photo Alexander Skarsgård and Kirsten Dunst copied from: http://static.periscopepost.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/movie-melancholia-lars-von-trier-Kirsten-Dunst-www.lylybye.blogspot.com_-480x345.jpg)
(Photo Charlotte Gainsbourgh copied from: http://www.filmsdacote.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/charlotte-gainsbourg-et-lars-von-trier-ensemble-pour-melancholia0.jpg)(Photo Kirsten Dunst "depression" copied from: http://a2.idata.over-blog.com/300x168/3/74/49/46/lars-von-trier-melancholia.jpg)
(Photo ensemble Kiefer Sutherland, Lars ovn Trier, Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg copied from: http://thefilmstage.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/melancholia.jpg)
(Planets colliding copied from: http://yulbaba.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/planete.jpg)
(Photo Kirsten Dunst "electrfied" copied from: http://im.wk.io/images/v/503445/melancholia-lars-von-trier.jpeg)
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