Melancholia

Melancholia
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Lars von Trier
Produced by	Meta Louise Foldager Louise Vesth
Written by	Lars von Trier
Starring	Kirsten Dunst Charlotte Gainsbourg Kiefer Sutherland
Cinematography	Manuel Alberto Claro
Editing by	Molly Malene Stensgaard
Studio	Zentropa
Distributed by	Nordisk Film
Release date(s)	18 May 2011 (2011-05-18) (Cannes Film Festival) 26 May 2011 (2011-05-26)
Running time	136 minutes
Country	Denmark, Sweden, France
Language	English
Budget	52.5 million kr (approx. US$9.4 million as at Aug. 2010)
Box office	US$16,668,747[1]

Melancholia is a 2011 film written and directed by Lars von Trier, starring Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Kiefer Sutherland. The narrative revolves around two sisters during and shortly after the wedding party of one of them, while Earth is about to collide with an approaching rogue planet. The film prominently features music from the prelude to Richard Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde (1857–59).

Trier's initial inspiration for the film came from a depressive episode he suffered and the insight that depressed people remain calm in stressful situations. The film is a Danish production by Zentropa, with international co-producers in Sweden, France, Germany and Italy. Filming took place in Sweden.

The film premiered in May 2011 at the 64th Cannes Film Festival. Dunst received the festival's Best Actress Award for her performance.

Plot

The film begins with an introductory sequence shot in extreme slow motion, involving the main characters and images from space which introduce many visual leitmotifs of the film.^[2] A shot from the vantage point of space shows a giant planet approaching Earth; the two planets collide. The film continues in two parts, each named for one of two sisters.

In part one, "Justine", a young couple, Justine and Michael, arrive at their wedding reception at a resort owned by Justine's sister, Claire, and her husband, John. The lavish reception lasts from dusk to dawn with eating, drinking, dancing, and the gathering of guests on the estate's lawn to release sky lanterns adorned with handwritten well-wishes for the bride and groom. On several occasions, Justine looks at a particular red star, which seems to shine brighter than normal; John, an amateur astronomer, identifies it as Antares.

Over the course of the evening, Justine is frustrated by various personal and professional difficulties: Her bitter mother insults her in a toast, resulting in John threatening to throw her off of his property. Justine's boss repeatedly harasses her to write ad copy before the end of the reception. Claire becomes frustrated with Justine and chastises her for not reacting to the reception with the joy she had anticipated. Justine drifts away from the party several times-- including to take a nap with her young nephew, Leo-- and becomes increasingly distant from her family and new husband. Michael attempts to console Justine with a wedding present-- his purchase of an apple orchard for them to enjoy as they grow older-- but Justine seems unmoved. When she and Michael retreat to their room for the evening, she brushes off his advances and goes walking on the grounds, where she has sex with a co-worker in a sand trap. At the end of the party, Michael leaves her. At dawn the next day, Claire takes Justine horseback riding; Justine notices that the red star has disappeared.

In part two, "Claire", Justine has become severely depressed. She comes to stay with Claire and John, who live in the mansion where the reception took place. Justine is unable to carry out normal everyday activities like taking a bath or even eating, but gets better over time. John explains that the reason for Antares' disappearance was the rogue planet Melancholia, which had eclipsed the star. Melancholia, a massive blue telluric planet^[3] (or super-earth) that had before been hidden behind the sun, becomes visible in the sky, approaching Earth. John is excited about the planet, and looks forward to the "fly-by" expected by scientists, who have assured the public that Earth and Melancholia will pass by each other without colliding.

Melancholia's first approach and final collision with Earth, as described (and shown briefly in a similar diagram) in the film

Claire is very fearful and believes the end of the world is imminent. She searches on the Internet and finds a site describing the movements of the planet Melancholia around Earth as a "dance of death" in which the apparent passage of Melancholia initiates a slingshot orbit that will bring the planets into collision soon after. On the night of the fly-by, it seems that Melancholia will not hit Earth. After the fly-by, background birdsong abruptly ceases. The next day, Claire realizes that Melancholia is circling back and will collide with Earth after all. John, who has come to the same realization, commits suicide through a pill overdose. Claire finds his body and then tries to conceal his death from Leo and Justine. Justine is unfazed by the impending doom; she tells Claire that she finds life on Earth to be evil, and takes comfort in the knowledge that it will soon be destroyed. Justine further informs her sister that her intuition tells her that Earth is the only planet in the universe supporting life, and that the destruction of Earth will mean the end of all life.

Faced with the impending collision, Claire becomes distraught and suggests a "farewell party" on the terrace with wine and music. In response, Justine insults and degrades Claire before going to comfort Leo. She makes him a protective "magic cave", a symbolic shelter made out of wooden sticks, constructed in a teepee fashion, on the lawn of the estate. Justine, Claire and Leo enter the shelter as the planet approaches. Claire continues to remain agitated and fearful, while Justine and Leo remain calm and hold hands. Justine, Leo, and Claire are all incinerated as the collision occurs, destroying Earth.

Cast

• Kirsten Dunst as Justine
• Charlotte Gainsbourg as Claire
• Kiefer Sutherland as John, Claire's husband
• Alexander Skarsgård as Michael
• Cameron Spurr as Leo
• Charlotte Rampling as Gaby, Justine and Claire's mother
• John Hurt as Dexter, Justine and Claire's father
• Jesper Christensen as Little Father, The Butler
• Stellan Skarsgård as Jack, Justine's boss
• Brady Corbet as Tim
• Udo Kier as The Wedding Planner

Production

Development

The idea for the film originated during a therapy session Lars von Trier attended during treatments for his depression. A therapist had told Trier that depressive people tend to act more calmly than others under heavy pressure, because they already expect bad things to happen. Trier then developed the story not primarily as a disaster film, and without any ambition to portray astrophysics realistically, but as a way to examine the human psyche during a disaster.^[4][5]

The idea of a planetary collision was inspired by websites with theories about such events. Trier decided from the outset that it would be clear from the beginning that the world would actually end in the film, so audiences would not be distracted by the suspense of not knowing. The concept of the two sisters as main characters developed via an exchange of letters between Trier and the Spanish actress Penélope Cruz. Cruz wrote that she would like to work with Trier, and spoke enthusiastically about the play The Maids by Jean Genet. As Trier subsequently tried to write a role for the actress, the two maids from the play evolved into the sisters Justine and Claire in Melancholia. Much of the personality of the character Justine was based on Trier himself.^[6] The name was inspired by the 1791 novel Justine by Marquis de Sade.^[7]

Melancholia was produced by Denmark's Zentropa, with co-production support from its subsidiary in Germany, Sweden's Memfis Film, France's Slot Machine and Liberator Productions and Italy's Pappagallo Films.^[8] The production received 7.9 million Danish kroner from the Danish Film Institute, 600,000 euro from Eurimages and 3 million Swedish kronor from the Swedish Film Institute.^[9][10] Additional funding was provided by Film i Väst, DR, Arte France, CNC, Canal+, BIM Italy, Filmstiftung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Sveriges Television and Nordisk Film- & TV-Fond.^[8] The total budget was 52.5 million Danish kroner.^[11]

Cruz was initially expected to play the lead role, but dropped out when the filming schedule of another project was changed. Trier then offered the role to Kirsten Dunst, who accepted it. Dunst had been suggested for the role by the American filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson in a discussion about the film between him and Trier.^[6][7]

Filming

Tjolöholm Castle at Sunset, where exterior scenes were filmed.

Principal photography began 22 July and ended 8 September 2010. Interior scenes were shot at Film i Väst's studios in Trollhättan, Sweden. It was the fourth time Trier made a film in Trollhättan.^[12] Exteriors included the area surrounding the Tjolöholm Castle.^[13] The film was recorded digitally with Arri Alexa and Phantom cameras.^[14] Trier employed his usual directing style with no rehearsals; instead the actors improvised and received instructions between the takes.^[15] The camera was initially operated by Trier, and then left to cinematographer Manuel Alberto Claro who repeated Trier's movements. Claro said about the method: "[Trier] wants to experience the situations the first time. He finds an energy in the scenes, presence, and makes up with the photographic aesthetics."^[11] Trier explained that the visual style he aimed at in Melancholia was "a clash between what is romantic and grand and stylized and then some form of reality", which he hoped to achieve through the hand-held camerawork.^[6] He feared however that it would tilt too much toward the romantic, because of the setting at the upscale wedding, and the castle, which he called "super kitschy".^[6][13]

Post-production

The prelude to Richard Wagner's Tristan und Isolde supplies the main musical theme of the film, and Trier's use of an overture-like opening sequence before the first act is a technique closely associated with Wagner. This choice was inspired by a 30-page section of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time, where Proust concludes that Wagner's prelude is the greatest work of art of all time. Melancholia uses music more than any film by Trier since The Element of Crime from 1984. In some scenes, the film was edited in the same pace as the music. Trier said: "It's kind of like a music video that way. It's supposed to be vulgar."^[4] Trier also pointed out parallels between both Wagner and editing to the music and the aesthetics of Nazi Germany.^[4]

Visual effects were provided by companies in Poland, Germany and Sweden under special effects supervisor Peter Hjorth. Poland's Platige Image, which previously had worked with Trier on Antichrist, created most of the effects seen in the film's opening sequence; the earliest instructions were provided by Trier in the summer 2010, after which a team of 19 graphic artists worked on the project for three months.^[16]

Release

Shortly before the film's premiere, Trier published a "director's statement", where he wrote that he had started to regret having made such a polished film, but that he hoped it would contain some flaws which would make it interesting. The director wrote: "I desired to dive headlong into the abyss of German romanticism.... But is that not just another way of expressing defeat? Defeat to the lowest of cinematic common denominators? Romance is abused in all sorts of endlessly dull ways in mainstream products."^[17]

Lars von Trier at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.

The premiere took place at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival, where Melancholia was screened in competition on 18 May.^[18] The press conference after the screening gained considerable publicity. The Hollywood Reporter's Scott Roxborough wrote that "Von Trier has never been very P.C. and his Cannes press conferences always play like a dark stand-up routine, but at the Melancholia press conference he took it to another level, tossing a grenade into any sense of public decorum."^[19] Trier first joked about working on a hardcore pornographic film that would star Dunst and Gainsbourg. When asked about the relation between the influences of German Romanticism in Melancholia and Trier's own German heritage, the director brought up that he had been raised believing his biological father was a Jew, only to learn as an adult that his actual father was a German gentile. He then made jokes about Jews and Nazis, said he understood Adolf Hitler and admired the work of architect Albert Speer, and jokingly announced that he was a Nazi.^[19][20] The Cannes Film Festival issued an official apology for the remarks the same day and clarified that Trier is not a Nazi or an anti-Semite, then declared the director "persona non grata" the following day.^[21][22] This meant he was not allowed to go within 100 meters of the Festival Palace, but he did remain in Cannes and continued to give promotional interviews.^[23]

The film was released in Denmark on 26 May 2011 through Nordisk Film.^[8] Launched on 57 screens, the film entered the box-office chart as number three.^[24] A total of 50,000 tickets were eventually sold in Denmark.^[25] It was released in the United Kingdom and Ireland on 30 September, in Germany on 6 October and in Italy on 21 October.^[26] Magnolia Pictures acquired the distribution rights for North America and it was released on 11 November, with a pre-theatrical release on 13 October as a rental through such Direct TV vendors as Vudu and Amazon.com.^[27][26] Madman Entertainment bought the rights for Australia and New Zealand.^[28]

Reception

The film has received mostly positive reviews. It maintains a 77% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with the consensus: "Melancholia's dramatic tricks are more obvious than they should be, but this is otherwise a showcase for Kirsten Dunst's acting and for Lars von Trier's profound, visceral vision of depression and destruction."

Kim Skotte of Politiken wrote that "there are images – many images – in Melancholia which underline that Lars von Trier is a unique film storyteller", and "the choice of material and treatment of it underlines Lars von Trier's originality." Skotte also compared it to the director's previous film: "Through its material and look, Melancholia creates rifts, but unlike Antichrist I don't feel that there is a fence pole in the rift which is smashed directly down into the meat. You sit on your seat in the cinema and mildly marveled go along in the end of the world."^[29] Berlingske's Ebbe Iversen wrote about the film: "It is big, it is enigmatic, and now and then rather irritating. But it is also a visionary work, which makes a gigantic impression." The critic continued: "From time to time the film moves on the edge of kitsch, but with Kirsten Dunst as Justine and Charlotte Gainsbourg as Claire in front, Melancholia is a bold, uneven, unruly and completely unforgettable film."^[30]

Steven Loeb of Southampton Patch wrote, "This film has brought the best out of von Trier, as well as his star. Dunst is so good in this film, playing a character unlike any other she has ever attempted, that she won the award for Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival this past May. Even if the film itself were not the incredible work of art that it is, Dunst’s performance alone would be incentive enough to recommend it."^[31]

Sukhdev Sandhu wrote from Cannes in The Daily Telegraph that the film "at times comes close to being a tragi-comic opera about the end of the world", and that "The apocalypse, when it comes, is so beautifully rendered that the film cements the quality of fairy tale that its palatial setting suggests." About the acting performances, Sandhu wrote: "All of them are excellent here, but Dunst is exceptional, so utterly convincing in the lead role – trouble, serene, a fierce savant – that it feels like a career breakthrough. ... Meanwhile, Gainsbourg, for whom the end of the world must seem positively pastoral after the horrors she went through in Antichrist, locates in Claire a fragility that ensures she's more than a whipping girl for social satire." Sandhu brought up one reservation in the review, in which he gave the film the highest possible rating of five stars: "there is, as always with Von Trier's work, a degree of intellectual determinism that can be off-putting; he illustrates rather than truly explore ideas."^[32] Peter Bradshaw, writing for The Guardian, called the film "clunky" and "tiresome", judging it to be "conceived with[out] real passion or imagination", and not "well written or convincingly acted in any way at all", and gave it two stars out of a possible five.^[33]

Accolades

Dunst received the Best Actress Award at the closing ceremony of the Cannes Film Festival.^[34] The film won three awards at the European Film Awards for Best Film, Best Cinematographer (Manuel Alberto Claro), and Best Designer (Jette Lehmann).^[35]

The US National Society of Film Critics selected Melancholia as the best picture of 2011 and named Kirsten Dunst best actress.^[36] The film was also nominated for four Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards: Best Film – International; Best Direction – International for von Trier, Best Screenplay – International also for von Trier, and Best Actress – International for Dunst.^[37]

See also

• 2011 in film
• Cinema of Denmark
• Impact events in popular culture
• List of apocalyptic films

References

External links

• Official website
• Melancholia at the Internet Movie Database
• Melancholia at Rotten Tomatoes