I’ve compared nearly half of the great movies this year to “The Tree of Life,” and this review will be no different, but the comparisons should really go the other way to Lars von Trier’s “Melancholia.” Arguably a better film than Terrence Malick’s and the polar opposite in tone, von Trier’s elegantly bleak way of defining life is to end it.
Rather than witnessing the birth of the Earth, “Melancholia” reveals to us in all its destructive glory the end of the world as another planet collides with Earth. Perhaps only the dour Dane von Trier could truly show the absolute majesty of oblivion. His opening sequence of operatic surrealism recalls Fellini and Kubrick. Time literally slows watching it. Nature, death and sci-fi as a genre are re-imagined in this picturesque procession of painterly beauty and celestial wonder.
The montage actually serves as a monumental overture to an intricate psychological drama down on the human level. We glimpse Justine (Kirsten Dunst) floating down a river in her wedding dress and her sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) slogging through a muddy golf course as it seems to eat her alive. These two sisters will each view the end of the world from their own perspectives, beginning on Justine’s wedding night.
Justine suffers from the mental condition melancholia. Even at her wedding reception, she drifts in and out of gloom and bitterness. It doesn’t help that her family is equally petty and dour. Her brother in law John (Kiefer Sutherland) is concerned only with the cost of hosting such an extravagant party. Her mother, long divorced from the family, barely knows why she’s here and hates everyone involved. Even her boss Jack (Stellan Skarsgard) grills Justine with deadlines.
But her acting out is much worse than any in her family. She has rough, angry sex with a newly met colleague in open defiance against her husband. She lashes out at her mother and her boss, and we can sense her fatigued irritation with following the wedding receptions insignificant rituals. Ultimately, her reasons for her anger are left unsaid, and it adds to the film’s mystery.
But all of this is cryptic and haunting. The jittery handheld cinematography is a stark contrast to the bold grace of the prologue, and it seems to mindlessly run rampant, as does the entire family’s melancholy. And knowing what we know about their devastating fate soon to arrive, these family squabbles all seem so meaningless, so lifeless. It’s a powerful first act to symbolize von Trier’s pessimistic life vision found in the neuroses of Justine’s sister Claire.
An unspecified amount of time later, Claire, John and Justine are fully aware of the planet Melancholia heading their way. It hangs in the sky like the second sun over Tattooine. John, a scientist, is confident the planet will only pass by the Earth. Claire is less certain, and nothing will convince her otherwise. And Justine has been rendered virtually catatonic at the certainty of the end of the world.
Justine’s fatalistic perspective is shockingly poignant and clear-headed when compared with Claire’s uncertainty. She’s gone lifeless because at this point, no activity that dictates a normal existence means anything. She says, “Life on Earth is evil, and when it’s gone, no one will miss it.”
Dunst carries such gravity in her performance. Her transformation from a wavering, lost soul to a certain and cold arbiter of death is startling. Deservedly so, she won the Best Actress award at Cannes. She is so pessimistic in the role, she is crucial in the film’s realization that to even praise life is to recall death.
As I said, it’s a stark contrast to the celebration of life and the reunion afterlife that follows it depicted in “The Tree of Life.” “Melancholia’s” glorious closing money shot of the end of the world is quite literally Earth shattering to sit through, and its immense power and stunning visual effect rivals any one shot in “The Tree of Life.”
“Melancholia” is a breathtaking film of great power and raw emotion. Perhaps no living filmmaker other than von Trier could have visualized the truly heavy burden the end of life would have on our hearts and minds.
4 stars