By: Keaton Marcus

MELANCHOLIA: deep sadness or gloom; melancholy.

Depression is a mood disorder that involves a persistent feeling of sadness, loneliness and loss of someone or something. It could be as small as a loss of interest for anything, or as large as grieving over a dead loved one. Maybe it’s simply you’re tired of life, or dealing with a death. It principally means a general feeling of sadness, and Lars von Trier’s Melancholia encapsulates the feeling of doom and isolation so well that it actually makes you feel these things. Haunted and deeply alone. From the magnificent opening sequence, if you do a little research, it will mean a tad more to you than simply an elegant first scene. One of the many symptoms of depression is time warping. Everything around you feels slow, you lose your sense of yourself and others, and your mental life is thrown under a bus. Considering that the first minutes of the movie are shot completely in slow-motion, it at least now has a true meaning to the stylistic choice other than only being a gimmick. Trier uses shaky-cam and swift zooms to create a disorienting atmosphere for the viewer, making them feel like they are in the main character’s shoes. As he has said in interviews, this is a reflection of Trier’s own depression. He’s writing and directing about himself. Getting back to the point, right after the warped montage of various people running, we get a beautiful shot of some sort of planet colliding with Earth heading into the opening credits sequence. We cut to two newlyweds, Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and Michael (Alexander Skaarsgard) driving in a comically-large limo on the way to their party. Eventually, because of its size, they abandon it and walk the rest of the way up the desolate hill. Justine’s sister, Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), comments on how late the two are. The interesting thing about this moment is the fact that it’s literally the start of the movie, perhaps less than ten minutes in, and the dialogue sort of gives hints to the seemingly time-warped wedding reception to come.

A COUPLE TOGETHER, YET APART:

Right off the bat, Michael and Justine almost seem utterly alienated from each other. She is clearly and obviously suffering from a great state of depression and grief, and he kind of acts as if he’s unaware of her mental health. He acts completely normal in every single scene and just shrugs it off whenever she shows any sort of emotional strife. It adds to the skewed time effect that Von Trier so deftly crafts, and how oblivious Michael is to everything going on with his wife. There isn’t any history added with the couple’s past, and viewers could definitely interpret it as they recently met without proper context. Likely the first hour of the movie is chroniciling the hazy, dreamlike reception, reverting from the party to whenever Justine exits it each time she falls deeper into a state of deep depression. The other members there are only trying to have a well-sequenced, proper reception for the couple, but Justine continues to interrupt. For example, she drives across the golf course aimlessly, sits in the bath for what could have been over an hour, yet the party still goes on. The two puzzle pieces and perspectives this film tries to fit together in the first act don’t work as a whole and that adds to the experience. It feels disorienting and catched me completely off guard every time Von Trier switched angles. Even when she is with the other people at the reception, it feels as though she is detatched from reality, and the dancing sequence in the movie is a haunting, seemingly neverending montage with “La Bamba” playing in the background. Again, everything speeds up in this brilliantly shot and directed sequence, and it feels almost too quick, like we’re missing something in all of the acid trippy action. It’s unsettling and disturbing without any actual violence or horror, and that simply proves that this is a man capable of serious filmmaking craft when he puts his mind into it.

ARTISITIC REFERENCES:

I had to look this up while witnessing all the painterly shots in the opening sequence, and I was right. Von Trier does reference several acclaimed and well-known paintings in several frames. For example, Ophelia lying in the water is paralleled here, and he uses a shot from Pieter Bruegel’s The Hunters in the Snow, which I also believe was put in a Tarkovsky movie, someone who Von Trier idolizes. He uses the same technique Tarkovsky used in Solaris with his film, repeating Richard Wagner’s Prelude to Tristan & Isolde, which gives the dark tone a beautiful side to it with some of the best music I’ve ever heard. The opening sequence is also keen on foreshadowing future moments in the film, despite not exactly replicating them. They are in the same vein, however.

A STRIKING LOOK AT DEPRESSION:

Sure, Melancholia may seem like it lacks any sort of real coherence, and it can wander off into occasional pretentiousness, but it’s one of the most groundbreaking portrayals of mental illness or depression that I have seen. Perhaps besides Midsommar, the best. Everyone struggles with some sort of depression. I went through a little phase when smashed with mountains of homework. It affects everyone, and this film is important to see. Putting it on a platter, melancholia or depression is when you lose your grip on identity and reality, time becomes warped, and everything comes to one big still. You have no motivations to do anything productive, memories become wavered, and every day it feels more difficult to wake up. It’s an awful experience, and this film channels it so well. Getting back on topic again, it would be a disservice to the movie not to write about the ending in this analysis. Heading into the magnificent final 30 minutes, the rogue planet Melancholia continues to threaten to collide with Earth despite reassurances from scientists that it would fly by. This experience doesn’t simply warm time, but also the character’s perception of the events. Justine, still deep in mental illness, reacts to her possible death with complete calm. Claire, on the other hand, loses her grip on reality and is rightfully worried about it all. It’s almost like only through this type of happening are the personalities of these characters switched to the opposite side. You can also interpret it as the film becoming the disease. Becoming depression. Becoming Melancholia. All in all, however you see it, this is a glorious, touching and unsettling look at mental illness through science fiction.