Melancholia – Film Review

Arthouse armageddon

Release Date: 30 September 2011
15 | 135 minutes
Distributor: Artificial Eye
Director: Lars von Trier
Cast: Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Kiefer Sutherland, John Hurt, Charlotte Rampling, Alexander Skarsgård

Genre fans will probably best know Lars von Trier for his gruelling arthouse horrors The Kingdom and Antichrist. The director’s first foray into sci-fi is an appropriately oppressive affair, leavened only by a luminous performance from Kirsten Dunst as a melancholic bride and some beautiful imagery (dead birds tumble from the sky; lightning sprouts from the earth; a horse falls over).

The film is split into two chapters. The first – stronger – half takes place at a posh wedding reception in a fairytale chateau. As the bride’s family start bickering, Dunst’s happy façade begins to crumble, her soul-deep huff symbolised by a planet, conveniently named “Melancholia”, that is presently thundering towards Earth. Part two takes place after the wedding, as the bride’s anxious sister (Charlotte Gainsbourg, also excellent) struggles to accept the oncoming armageddon. This second half plays pretty much as a straight doomsday drama – imagine an arthouse Deep Impact – but its jittery realism is completely at odds with the dreamy romanticism of part one. Once realism sets in, the symbolic sci-fi stuff starts to falter.

The planet, we’re told, has been “hiding behind the Sun” until now. Von Trier either hasn’t thought through his sci-fi conceit or just doesn’t care. Either way it fails to carry both sides of his story. There’s a genuine frisson at the inevitable ending, but this is scant reward for over two hours of strange, stilted dialogue, pained symbolism and viewer misery.

Alec Worley