MELANCHOLIA (Lars von Trier). 135 minutes. Opens Friday (November 11). For venues and times, see Movies. Rating: NNNN
Like its titular emotional state, Melancholia gets under your skin and sticks with you long after it’s over. It has a moody aftertaste that’s impossible to shake, and, given its contemplative vision, the director is obviously invested in what’s onscreen.
Lars von Trier’s atmospheric, operatic, end-of-the-world allegory feels a bit like two separate movies that never fully connect the way the planets do in its conclusion.
The first chapter is a delightfully sinister comedy about a wedding, its resentful guests and bride Justine (Kirsten Dunst), who suffers from depression on her big day. As in Thomas Vinterberg’s The Celebration, the characters are hostile, and you’ll savour their utter lack of decorum. In the second chapter, a waiting game for a mysterious planet called Melancholia that’s due to collide with Earth, von Trier patiently ratchets up the anxiety only subtly felt in the earlier segment.
There’s an insightful metaphor here about people who, like the planets, are better left in their own space.
It’s a little disjointed, but Melancholia overcomes that weakness with a stellar cast and celestial images that burn themselves into your memory.
And Von Trier avoids the provocations employed in his last effort, Antichrist. Perhaps he’s realized that a film doesn’t need a mutilated clitoris to have a lasting effect.
