Lars von Trier - Melancholia, Cannes, and the End of the World

Oct 4, 2011
Kevin Sturton

Kirsten Dunst - Christian Geisnaes

The controversial Danish director makes up for his tiresome Dogme movies and the awful Antichrist with a stunning apocalyptic film about depression.

Melancholia is a return to the highly stylised form of filmmaking Lars von Trier rejected for the pared down strictures of Dogme 95. Together with fellow Danish director Thomas Vintenberg, von Trier created the Dogme 95 manifesto and their sets of rules were designed to strip away artifice from cinema. Sets, music, and optical effects were banned. These pared down, emotionally draining dramas are what von Trier is famous for these days, although technically only The Idiots (1998) adheres to the rules. Melancholia however is firmly in the tradition of German Romanticism and von Trier creates a series of painterly images all set to Wagner’s ‘Tristan and Isolde.’

“We must go back to the beginning” – The Element of Crime and Europa

Von Trier’s early films were aesthetically driven and contain a Romanticism largely missing from his later films. The Element of Crime (1984) is heavily indebted to German Expressionism. A former policeman exiled in Egypt remembers a case he worked on many years ago. Set in a Europe that is now a post-industrial ruin, The Element of Crime is a visually stunning dreamlike murder mystery.

Europa is arguably his masterpiece. An American of German descent returns to Germany immediately after the end of WWII with idealistic notions of helping the country rebuild itself. Kessler (Jean Marc-Barr) gets a job working as a railway conductor but finds himself drawn into the troubles of the family who run the organisation. Everybody has an agenda except him. Kessler is an innocent. Perversely von Trier suggests this makes him the worst of all. Everybody else is just trying to survive.

Most of the film is filmed in black and white. There is a sonorous voice-over by Max Von Sydow which suggests the hero is moving slowly towards his doom, but at certain transcendent moments Europa comes alive with colour. This is the kind of sublime Romanticism Dogme 95 rejects. Interestingly von Trier casts himself in a brief role as a concentration camp survivor. In 1991 von Trier still believed himself to be a Jew. "What I really liked about being Jewish was being on the losing side.” (1)

When von Trier was in his mid-Thirties his mother told him he was illegitimate: From her death-bed. Way to screw your son up Mrs von Trier. Von Trier’s real father turned out to be a German who when approached threatened to get his lawyers involved. Way to screw up your illegitimate son Lars von Trier’s real dad. No wonder von Trier deconstructed his filmmaking style and started again with a pared down minimalism partly inspired by the films of fellow Dane Carl Dreyer (1889-1968).

It was this complicated and painful history the socially awkward von Trier tried to explain at the now notorious Cannes press conference for ‘Melancholia.’ Only it came out like this.

I thought I was a Jew for a long time and was very happy being a Jew.... I really wanted to be a Jew, and then I found out that I was really a Nazi.... Which also gave me some pleasure.... What can I say? I understand Hitler. But I think he did some wrong things, yes, absolutely.... I'm just saying I think I understand the man. He's not what you would call a good guy but I...yeah, I understand much about him and I sympathize with him a little bit.... Okay, I'm a Nazi.

Clumsy Lars, turning his own pain into a bad joke and not the kind to be appreciated in a former hotspot for holidaying Nazi’s during the collaborative days of Vichy France. Von Trier’s expulsion from the Festival was a ridiculous act of high-handedness from the Cannes organisers. One eloquently destroyed by the respected film writer Howard Feinstein in his article ‘Von Trier at Cannes: French Hypocrisy at its Worst.’ (2)

Melancholia - “Life is only on Earth, and not for long.”

Von Trier has suffered from debilitating bouts of depression and Melancholia re-imagines a catastrophic breakdown by Justine (Dunst) at her own wedding into an end of the world scenario. Yet rather than being bleak it is an uplifting tale for depressives comforting them with the thought that people who can’t cope with everyday life will fare better when the end comes. Dunst is a haunted fragile beauty these days and her performance here is the best she's given since Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michael Gondry 2004).

Melancholia is divided into two parts. The first focuses on the wedding celebrations of sweet natured giant Michael (Alexander Skarsgård) and Justine. Like the wedding in Vinterberg’s Festen (1998) the night is a disaster with Justine’s erratic behaviour ruining the event, much to the consternation of her sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), her rich husband John (Kiefer Sutherland), and a disgruntled wedding planner (Udo Kier).

The second part takes place shortly after the wedding with a now almost catatonic Justine having to be helped to carry out the simplest tasks. A planet called Melancholia is now on a collision course with Earth. Claire is terrified, John reassures them with lies, yet oddly Justine slowly comes to life. Claire finds her sister bathing nude in the moonlight watching Melancholia in the distance. “Life is evil, I know we’re alone” she says. It is not out of the realms of possibility she may be the force pulling the wayward planet towards them.

Melancholia is far preferable to Terence Malick’s similarly themed Tree of Life (2011). Malick’s film with its evangelism and its whiny baby boomer protagonist struggling with parental issues asks, why? Von Trier’s, what does it matter? Justine is looking for a more liberating form of deliverance; total obliteration and merciful release. Optimists will probably hate Melancholia. Anybody who’s ever suffered from the vagaries of depression should treat themselves.

Rating 4/5