Melancholia
Melancholia.
A deep and profound depression where all sense of happiness evaporates.
The name of a planet hurtling toward earth in Lars von Trier film of this title, and soon to obliterate it.
Knowing what’s to come through a surreal 8 minute prologue, in Part 1 a young bride, Justine, and her groom journey to the lavish country estate of her brother-in-law to celebrate her wedding. We witness the happy banter of the newlyweds as their stretch limousine finds it practically impossible to negotiate the narrow turns of the country road portending the difficulties to come. But once at the estate we’re seduced into the opulence and grandeur of the wedding reception. The camera jumps around from one batty character to another. I am reminded of the Buddhist notion of monkey mind, where the untrained mind jumps fleetingly from one though or mood to the next.
Dysfunctionalities are revealed as the evening courses on and the depth of Kristin’s unwavering melancholia surfaces. In one scene her brother-in-law chides her. After all, he’s spent an arm and a leg on this wedding and all he asks for is that she be happy in return. (As if happiness, ethereal and fleeting as it is and that springs from a deeper well, can be quenched by a full bank account.) Justine does strive—valiantly—to be happy but her darkness , know only to herself, is all engulfing.
Her frail marriage, barely emerged from its chrysalis ends that night. She leaves her wedding bed to run about in the night in her tresses, a white train of crumpled wings. Not even the adoration and love of her husband can save her. Like the paper balloons, lit and released by the reception guests earlier, beautiful glowing orbs that float away into the night, so too does her attempt at happiness. Her isolation is complete.
Part 2. Melancholia hurtles towards earth apparently to pass it by, but we’ve been given a glimpse of the end and now must watch as the characters comes face to face with their impending doom. First, there is Justine returning to the estate, mired in depression, her melancholia fully blown, saved only by the strict, but loving tenderness, of her sister, Claire. Tension builds as it dawns on the characters that Melancholia is headed straight for earth in all of its terrible majestic beauty. The suspense is teased out beautifully; birds chirping, the passing of five minutes, the wisp of a breeze–all are imbued with a weightiness that even Kieslowski would have admired. The camera too has stilled, reflecting the proverbial calm before the storm, or has the storm already passed?
As Claire starts becoming unhinged, Justine come increasingly alive, after all her nihilistic vision, all that she known to be true is about to be validated. Justine has already been in the darkness, she lives with it every day; it is no stranger. As Claire become increasingly distraught suggesting they have a toast on the terrace at the moment of annihilation to bring some ludicrous sense of order to things, Justine refuses to pander to her. This is the end, life on earth deserves to be ended, there is no life elsewhere in the universe that will go on; this is her grim truth to be rubbed in your face.
In a throwback to part 1 of the film where wedding guest are invited to guess the number of beans in a jar and there is an absurd moment when the wedding planners having carefully polled all answers and because no one has guessed correctly are at a loss of what to do, believing guests are waiting for them to announce the results when in fact no one really cares, Justine reveals, now, that she knew exactly how many beans there were in that jar that night, a prescience that lends a chilling power to her words. The metaphor too is unambiguous–we are nothing but bean counters.
As Melancholia nears earth, there is a tender moment in which Justine’s humanity is redeemed. She puts aside the brutal honesty with which she treats her sister to comfort her fearful nephew, inviting him to build a secret cave with her that has long been their game, in which to find refuge when she knows there is none. In the film’s final moments, the ‘cave’, a tepee of hewn sticks is constructed. Justine, her role reversal with Claire complete, is now the caregiver, and draws in her trembling sister in to join the boy whose eyes are closed , bravely, as he is instructed.
While Claire trembles and weeps, Justine sits with a calmness of expression, an uneasy peace dawning over her for the first time. She is not beatific, we are not offered any hope that the she expects to be lifted into the light, she hears no clarion calls of angels. We are reminded instead of a the opening scene in the prologue, when birds fall from the sky. There the three sit, hands held tightly, one believing, one accepting, and the other refusing, or unable, to do either. The final scene juxtaposing the trinity against the looming beauty of Melancholia in earth’s final moment is visually stunning.
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As A.O Scott in his excellent New York Times review of Melancholia notes, “The end of the world as we know it might just turn out to be beautiful.” Lars von Trier may be one of the few filmmakers to tell it as so, and its certainly an alluring idea. The filmmaker avoids depicting the mass hysteria that would likely erupting all over the planet; no annoying doomsdayers waving signs. The power has gone out so there are no radios or TVs, or facebook status updates to parse out the unfolding doom. No Google to save the world. There are no shots of Melancholia looming behind the Taj Mahal or the pyramids or New York like spaceships as in so many end-of-the world alien attack movies. There are only three people, each forced to confront their inner worlds as the outer one is about to end, everything they have believed to be true being tested and validated in this final reckoning.
As I gaze at full moon tonight, I imagine for a moment that it’s a planet that will lurch unpredictably out of orbit and hurtle towards us. If we, at that last moment before oblivion, can muster a peaceful acceptance of our fate then I think that we will have, in that one act, validated the entire span and purpose of human existence over millenia. The question, then, of whether life exists, or will persist elsewhere, will have been rendered irrelevant. The ending could be as beautiful as the big bang that launched us into existence.
But who will be there to watch?