Melancholia (2011) – 2/5

Coming down

„Melancholia“ is a co-production between Denmark, Sweden, France and Germany from 2011, so this film here is also already comfortably over a decade old now and the fact that Denmark is listed first has of course to do with this being one of the more recent works by Danish writer and director Lars von Trier. He has a long history with the Cannes Film Festival that involved his movies winning the prestigious Palme d’Or on several occasions, especially if we include his casts as well. It became a bittersweet edition then that year as lead actress Kirsten Dunst took home the prize, but at the same time von Trier got ousted due to dubious comments he made during a press conference in Cannes. I will not go into detail about what he said exactly, but you can check out the video yourself if you really want to know. It is on Youtube of course. What matters more though is that with a total of over 30 award wins and almost 100 additional nominations, awards-wise this film was one of the big players from its year back. The film makes it comfortably past the two-hour mark, it is a fairly long movie, but by no means von Trier’s longest. He has several films that ran even more minutes. He likes them long. If we look at the cast, I already mentioned Dunst and this is a film that includes two segments and the first deals with her protagonist and the second with Charlotte Gainsbourg’s character. They are pretty much equal I would say. Sisters. Of course, von Trier then went on shooting the Nymphomaniac duology with Gainsbourg again in the lead. There is something about her really. Very stunning actress and in my movie I’d pick her over Dunst anytime. Dunst had the baitier material here though with a great deal of nudity, also topless, and with her character’s depression struggles.

There are more interesting names: Kiefer Sutherland of course is not necessarily an actor you’d expect in a von Trier movie. More likely sounds the other Charlotte in here, namely Rampling. John Hurt you have probably seen on at least one other von Trier project or I should say „heard“ as he narrated „Dogville“. May he rest in piece. Udo Kier is always in von Trier’s movies and here he plays a harmless character for once, namely a wedding planner, instead of a threatening force. Then there is Stellan Skarsgård, who has also worked with von Trier on so many occasions already. He also returned for Nymphomaniac. I am glad that actors stayed loyal to the filmmaker here after the aforementioned comments. And here Skarsgård even brought his son Alexander into the cast, so it was a bit of a family affair and the young man who was bound for huge small screen glory awards-wise a few years later plays the significant other of Dunst’s character. He is only featured in the first half though. Some time passed between the two segments when Dunst’s character is living with her sister in the second segment and her romance relationship is inevitably over at that point then. We do not find out about the details, but the escalation at the wedding and what Dunst’s character has to say to her fiancé’s father probably had a lot to do with it. Acting-wise, this was maybe my favorite moment from the movie and I am especially referring to the older Skarsgård there in this scene when Dunst’s character unleashes on him. He did not need to say a word to steal the scene there with his facial acting. Well done. Other than that, his character is pretty cruel, maybe sadistic even, surely boastful and treats other with lack of respect. Just like Sutherland’s character does.

Kiefer Sutherland had way more screen time than Skarsgård and he was the closest to a main antagonist this film has. Unless we count the approaching planet as a villain. Sutherland’s character could not have been any more unlikeable on a few occasions. Just look at what he has to say early on about riding a horse. Look at how he acts so confident towards Gainsbourg’s character, but when he realizes the truth hitting him, like literally even eventually, he kills himself in the most cowardly manner and leaves his frightened wife and son behind. There are other awful moments to this character. You know them when you see them. I am not necessarily talking about the moment when he has enough of Rampling’s character, but still it was not great and he might have talked about it with others before pulling through with throwing her out. With Dunst I fail to see a bit where her greatness lies that has resulted in the awards recognition. I mean she was okay, had decent screen presence, but that was it. She did nothing extraordinary. Maybe it helped her that her character was right about the planet hitting our planet in here and that she was so quietly confident about it. Her nickname from the boy, well, it felt more embarrassing. Maybe she was also not particularly scared because she has seen equally devastating collisions inside herself in terms of her health struggles. Or she is even suicidal. Certainly also helped with the perception of her character how she manages to keep the fear away from the boy and that was really the only good anybody could have done in the end. There was no rescue. We know that from the start really, unless you came late to the movie or developed the idea that von Trier may be toying here with the perception and what you see at the very beginning would only have been a different scenario. A different way how things could have played out, especially taking into account how we are led to believe for quite some time towards the end that the planet is already moving away again from Earth.

Lars von Trier is known for the fact that almost always he has the women in his films go through unspeakable suffering. This one here may not be the heaviest from this perspective compared to what he did to his characters in other films, but it is still definitely true. In terms of both female protagonists in here. So the tradition continues you could say. Of course, eventually the entire mankind is going through mayhem, but for example we do not see Sutherland’s character suffer at all before his death. You also find many sexual references with von Trier movies and here they are included as well, even if not too many. Examples would be the (not so) subtle dirty talk from the car scene early on or the sex scene outdoors that was not graphic at all and I already mentioned Dunst’s character sunbathing in here or I should maybe say „planetbathing“. This was among the most memorable shots and not because Dunst is particularly attractive or so. Just the absurdity of the situation that we are witnessing the exact same time like Gainsbourg’s character. When the planets collide towards the very end then, I think it was a really nice inclusion to end the film as well. Biblical almost. The effects there were also very well done and I have nothing to complain. However, a great deal of the film before that felt rather forgettable to me and I never really felt involved with the characters or action here. This may to some extent have had to do with the fact that I am not particularly big on Dunst, but also in general I was underwhelmed. For each good moment, there were two that did nothing for me. Another example would be the brief talk about horses on one occasion how they are so calm now. This felt also rather pretentious than really impactful. It was a very brief statement only. If you do not listen closely, you may miss it. There’s other similar inclusions.

Sometimes LvT also took it too far in his quest for significance. Another example would be the guessing of the amount of peas or whatever it was there, apparently a little game that people like to play at weddings to get the guests involved. So far, this was alright, also when we understand Dunst’s character would not partake and I liked Gainsbourg’s character’s reaction when confronted with the solution and its insignificance in the grand scheme of things (which was not that grand yet in fact at that point), but Dunst’s character’s words on the amount and how she knew the number were just another weak moment. There’s quite a few. Perhaps, science fiction is just not von Trier’s best genre. I think he did best during his career when he kept supernatural elements out completely. Or only included them very briefly like the ringing of the bells at the end of „Breaking the Waves“. But of course, this one here is not just sci-fi. It is as much, if not more, a family drama too, but the sci-fi component is also undeniable. As a consequence, this is probably my least favorite Lars von Trier film at this point from all I have seen, most of them during this recent Danish film festival. I give „Melancholia“ a thumbs-down, also because I felt the outcome was not as atmospheric as I would have liked it to be given the plot and especially the apocalyptic scenario looming in the background. It does feel like a bit of a lost opportunity, not only for me subjectively because I would have preferred a different lead actress in the first segment. By the way, LvT loves to divide his movies into chapters and even if it is just two this time, he did it again. That is all and I hope the other viewers like it more. I am still baffled by how full the room was as this film was shown on numerous other occasions over the last two weeks. Really nice evidence of how old films can also attract big audiences. But everybody should really know that by now.