Melancholia (2011 film)

Plot

The film begins with an introductory sequence involving the main characters and images from space. These virtually still images reveal the key elements of the film: Justine the bride in deep melancholy with birds falling behind her; of a lawn with trees and sundial with two different shadows; Pieter Brueghel's The Hunters in the Snow burning; and the black horse collapsing in slow motion; Justine as a bride being swept along by a river; her wedding dress tangled in plant matter; and finally Justine and her nephew building their magic cave before Melancholia crashes into Earth.

Part One: "Justine"

Newlyweds Justine and Michael arrive two hours late for their own reception at the estate of Justine's sister, Claire, and her husband, John. Justine has a dysfunctional family: brother-in-law John appears to resent having to pay for the wedding; father Dexter is hedonistic and selfish to the point of narcissism, while mother Gaby is brutally honest and jaded to the point of getting herself thrown out of the wedding. No one asks what Justine wants, or why she is unhappy, but throughout her wedding she is praised for being beautiful. Claire urges Justine to hide her debilitating melancholy from her new husband Michael. Justine flees the wedding reception despite being held back by her wedding dress, which tears. She goes to the golf course and watches the night sky, squatting and urinating on the 18th hole.

Justine's boss, Jack, is ruthless, greedy, and gluttonous. During the most personal part of his wedding speech, he is hustling her to meet a work deadline (she writes copy) on the night of her wedding. He pushes her throughout the evening to create a tag line to promote a campaign based on a modern facsimile of Bruegel’s The Land of Cockaigne (mythical land of excess). She later opens a book at this picture. During a critical part of the wedding, the cake cutting, Justine and Gaby independently escape to have baths.

Justine's boss's nephew, Tim, is given the chance to exploit the opportunity to get the tag line at all costs to promote his career, a task similar to what Justine was previously so successful at. He reluctantly, but doggedly, pursues Justine throughout the wedding reception. She cannot consummate her marriage with her husband and goes out onto a sand trap and has sex with Tim. Tim is later fired for his failure, and Justine aggressively resigns. Justine and Michael talk and decide that their marriage was a failure. Michael departs. Early the following morning, while horseback riding with Claire, Justine notices Antares is no longer visible in the sky.

Part Two: "Claire"

John explains that the reason for Antares' disappearance was because the newly discovered planet Melancholia was blocking the star from view. Melancholia, a rogue planet that entered the Solar System from behind the Sun, becomes visible in the sky as it approaches ever closer to Earth. John is excited about the planet and looks forward to the "fly-by" predicted by scientists.

Justine's depression has worsened. Her sister is unable to wash her in the bath. Justine says she is so numb that even her favourite dish tastes of ash. As Justine loses ground, her connection to the black horse becomes more remote and frustrated. On two occasions, the horse refuses to cross a bridge over a river. Justine becomes more brutal as her frustration builds, finally mercilessly whipping the horse to the ground.

Claire is very fearful that the end of the world is imminent, despite her husband's assurances. She searches the Internet and finds an article predicting that Melancholia and the Earth will in fact collide. Justine tells her sister that she "knows" some things, like the number of beans in the bottle (at the wedding reception); she is certain that the two planets will collide, and moreover that this is a good thing since life on earth itself is "evil".

One night, Melancholia passes closely as predicted by the scientists, to great relief. The next day, however, Claire realizes when using a homemade device recommended by John that Melancholia is circling back as predicted by the Internet article. She begins to panic, looking for John and finding him dead in the black horse’s stable, having poisoned himself. Claire releases the horse. Justine, appearing to recover, had a bath, stating that she is now all clean. A hailstorm starts. Claire tries to escape the estate with her son but the golf cart she is riding shuts down as she attempts to cross the same bridge as Justine did earlier. Returned to the lodge, Claire begins to accept the inevitable and later suggests getting together on the terrace with wine and music. Justine dismisses her idea with brutal honesty.

Claire's son is frightened, but is reassured by Justine who says that they can be safe in a "magic cave", something she has promised several times to build. The three of them sit in a sort of unfinished tepee outside as another storm begins. Justine appears stoic and calm, while Claire is crying profusely. They remain in the tepee as Melancholia fills up the sky and the world comes to an end.

Cast

Development

The idea for the film originated during a therapy session Lars von Trier attended during treatments for his depression. A therapist had told von Trier that depressive people tend to act more calmly than others under heavy pressure, because they already expect bad things to happen. Von Trier then developed the story not primarily as a disaster film, and without any ambition to portray astrophysics realistically, but as a way to examine the human psyche during a disaster.

The idea of a planetary collision was inspired by websites with theories about such events. Von Trier decided from the outset that it would be clear from the beginning that the world would actually end in the film, so audiences would not be distracted by the suspense of not knowing. The concept of the two sisters as main characters developed via an exchange of letters between von Trier and the Spanish actress Penélope Cruz. Cruz wrote that she would like to work with von Trier, and spoke enthusiastically about the play The Maids by Jean Genet. As von Trier subsequently tried to write a role for the actress, the two maids from the play evolved into the sisters Justine and Claire in Melancholia. Much of the personality of the character Justine was based on von Trier himself. The name was inspired by the 1791 novel Justine by Marquis de Sade.

Melancholia was produced by Denmark's Zentropa, with co-production support from its subsidiary in Germany, Sweden's Memfis Film, France's Slot Machine and Liberator Productions. The production received 7.9 million Danish kroner from the Danish Film Institute, 600,000 euro from Eurimages and 3 million Swedish kronor from the Swedish Film Institute. Additional funding was provided by Film i Väst, DR, Arte France, CNC, Canal+, BIM Italy, Filmstiftung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Sveriges Television and Nordisk Film & TV-Fond. The total budget was 52.5 million Danish kroner.

Cruz was initially expected to play the lead role, but dropped out when the filming schedule of another project was changed. Von Trier then offered the role to Kirsten Dunst, who accepted it. Dunst had been suggested for the role by the American filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson in a discussion about the film between him and von Trier.

Filming

Principal photography began 22 July and ended 8 September 2010. Interior scenes were shot at Film i Väst's studios in Trollhättan, Sweden. It was the fourth time Trier made a film in Trollhättan. Exteriors included the area surrounding the Tjolöholm Castle. The film was recorded digitally with Arri Alexa and Phantom cameras. Trier employed his usual directing style with no rehearsals; instead the actors improvised and received instructions between the takes. The camera was initially operated by Trier, and then left to cinematographer Manuel Alberto Claro who repeated Trier's movements. Claro said about the method: "[von Trier] wants to experience the situations the first time. He finds an energy in the scenes, presence, and makes up with the photographic aesthetics." Trier explained that the visual style he aimed at in Melancholia was "a clash between what is romantic and grand and stylized and then some form of reality", which he hoped to achieve through the hand-held camerawork. He feared however that it would tilt too much toward the romantic, because of the setting at the upscale wedding, and the castle, which he called "super kitschy".

Post-production

The prelude to Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde supplies the main musical theme of the film, and Trier's use of an overture-like opening sequence before the first act is a technique closely associated with Wagner. This choice was inspired by a 30-page section of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time, where Proust concludes that Wagner's prelude is the greatest work of art of all time. Melancholia uses music more than any film by Trier since The Element of Crime from 1984. In some scenes, the film was edited in the same pace as the music. Trier said: "It's kind of like a music video that way. It's supposed to be vulgar." Trier also pointed out parallels between both the film's usage of Wagner and the film's editing to the music and the aesthetics of Nazi Germany.

Visual effects were provided by companies in Poland, Germany and Sweden under visual effects supervisor Peter Hjorth. Poland's Platige Image, which previously had worked with Trier on Antichrist, created most of the effects seen in the film's opening sequence; the earliest instructions were provided by Trier in the summer 2010, after which a team of 19 visual effects artists worked on the project for three months.

During Nymphomaniac, a monologue by the title character about loneliness is edited to shots of the universe from Melancholia.

Release

Shortly before the film's premiere, Trier published a "director's statement", where he wrote that he had started to regret having made such a polished film, but that he hoped it would contain some flaws which would make it interesting. The director wrote: "I desired to dive headlong into the abyss of German romanticism.... But is that not just another way of expressing defeat? Defeat to the lowest of cinematic common denominators? Romance is abused in all sorts of endlessly dull ways in mainstream products."

The premiere took place at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, where Melancholia was screened in competition on 18 May. The press conference after the screening gained considerable publicity. The Hollywood Reporter's Scott Roxborough wrote that "Von Trier has never been very P.C. and his Cannes press conferences always play like a dark stand-up routine, but at the Melancholia press conference he took it to another level, tossing a grenade into any sense of public decorum." Trier first joked about working on a hardcore pornographic film that would star Dunst and Gainsbourg. When asked about the relation between the influences of German Romanticism in Melancholia and Trier's own German heritage, the director brought up that he had been raised believing his biological father was a Jew, only to learn as an adult that his actual father was a German. He then made jokes about Jews and Nazis, said he understood Adolf Hitler and admired the work of architect Albert Speer, and jokingly announced that he was a Nazi. The Cannes Film Festival issued an official apology for the remarks the same day and clarified that Trier is not a Nazi or an anti-Semite, then declared the director "persona non grata" the following day. This meant he was not allowed to go within 100 meters of the Festival Palace, but he did remain in Cannes and continued to give promotional interviews.

The film was released in Denmark on 26 May 2011 through Nordisk Film. Launched on 57 screens, the film entered the box-office chart as number three. A total of 50,000 tickets were eventually sold in Denmark. It was released in the United Kingdom and Ireland on 30 September, in Germany on 6 October and in Italy on 21 October. Magnolia Pictures acquired the distribution rights for North America and it was released on 11 November, with a pre-theatrical release on 13 October as a rental through such Direct TV vendors as Vudu and Amazon.com. Madman Entertainment bought the rights for Australia and New Zealand.

Critical response

Melancholia received positive reviews from critics. The film holds a 79% "Certified Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 185 reviews, with an average rating of 7.4/10, and the consensus: "Melancholia's dramatic tricks are more obvious than they should be, but this is otherwise a showcase for Kirsten Dunst's acting and for Lars von Trier's profound, visceral vision of depression and destruction." The film also holds a score of 80 out of 100 on Metacritic, based on 40 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews."

Kim Skotte of Politiken wrote that "there are images—many images—in Melancholia which underline that Lars von Trier is a unique film storyteller", and "the choice of material and treatment of it underlines Lars von Trier's originality." Skotte also compared it to the director's previous film: "Through its material and look, Melancholia creates rifts, but unlike Antichrist I don't feel that there is a fence pole in the rift which is smashed directly down into the meat. You sit on your seat in the cinema and mildly marveled go along in the end of the world." Berlingske's Ebbe Iversen wrote about the film: "It is big, it is enigmatic, and now and then rather irritating. But it is also a visionary work, which makes a gigantic impression." The critic continued: "From time to time the film moves on the edge of kitsch, but with Justine played by Kirsten Dunst and Claire played by Charlotte Gainsbourg as the leading characters, Melancholia is a bold, uneven, unruly and completely unforgettable film."

Steven Loeb of Southampton Patch wrote, "This film has brought the best out of von Trier, as well as his star. Dunst is so good in this film, playing a character unlike any other she has ever attempted, that she won the award for Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival this past May. Even if the film itself were not the incredible work of art that it is, Dunst’s performance alone would be incentive enough to recommend it."

Sukhdev Sandhu wrote from Cannes in The Daily Telegraph that the film "at times comes close to being a tragi-comic opera about the end of the world," and that, "the apocalypse, when it comes, is so beautifully rendered that the film cements the quality of fairy tale that its palatial setting suggests." About the actors' performances, Sandhu wrote: "all of them are excellent here, but Dunst is exceptional, so utterly convincing in the lead role—trouble, serene, a fierce savant—that it feels like a career breakthrough. Meanwhile, Gainsbourg, for whom the end of the world must seem positively pastoral after the horrors she went through in Antichrist, locates in Claire a fragility that ensures she's more than a whipping girl for social satire." Sandhu brought up one reservation in the review, in which he gave the film the highest possible rating of five stars: "there is, as always with Von Trier's work, a degree of intellectual determinism that can be off-putting; he illustrates rather than truly explore ideas." Peter Bradshaw, writing for The Guardian, called the film "clunky" and "tiresome", judging it to be "conceived with[out] real passion or imagination", and not "well written or convincingly acted in any way at all", and gave it two stars out of a possible five.

Accolades

Dunst received the Best Actress Award at the closing ceremony of the Cannes Film Festival. The film won three awards at the European Film Awards for Best Film, Best Cinematographer (Manuel Alberto Claro), and Best Designer (Jette Lehmann).

The US National Society of Film Critics selected Melancholia as the best picture of 2011 and named Kirsten Dunst best actress. The film was also nominated for four Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards: Best Film – International; Best Direction – International for von Trier, Best Screenplay – International also for von Trier, and Best Actress – International for Dunst.

Film Comment magazine listed Melancholia third on its Best Films of 2011 list. The film also received 12 votes—seven from critics and five from directors—in the British Film Institute's 2012 Sight & Sound poll of the greatest movies ever made, making it one of the few films of the 21st century to appear within the top 250. In 2016, the film was named as the 43rd best film of the 21st century, from a poll of 177 film critics from around the world.