Rétrospective du Festival de Cannes: Melancholia, 2011 (Lars von Trier)

Prix d’interprétation féminine – Kirsten Dunst

The laboring endurance, that feeling of being weighed down or held back, to a point of almost idyllic catatonia, is immersively portrayed in Lars von Trier’s Melancholia. The Danish filmmaker defies his own rocky-road reputation, by stepping away from the more antagonistic, grotesque, or even pretentious, methods of audience enrapturing. Melancholia is an intricate, sharp screenplay from von Trier, which in turn is an extraordinarily ambient piece of cinema.

In the first instance, Melancholia’s opening collage of ultra-slow moments, provide a kind of serene, doom-filled canvas. A blueprint for what’s to come. As a mother carries her child while leaving alarmingly deep footprints in the soil. Or the bride seemingly shackled by tree vines. And the classical extract from Tristan and Isolde could literally be playing inside your head.

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The bride is Justine (Kirsten Dunst), tardily arriving at the reception with Michael (Alexander Skarsgård). Arranged by her sister, Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), and her husband, John (Kiefer Sutherland), at the swish, isolated country home – complete with 18 hole golf course. This type of venue, usually a happy zone all round, hosts the first half of Melancholia, as Justine continues on a personal downward trajectory rather than a euphoric transition. People can appear happy, but such a facade is key to von Trier’s masterwork here. And a testament to such a cunning, heartbreaking turn from Dunst.

We can see the cracks emerge throughout dinner. As the wedding party organizer (Udo Kier) flutters about with a bee in his bonnet. A series of rather cringe-worthy toasts, from the mischievous father (John Hurt), the embittered mother (Charlotte Rampling), and Justine’s employer (Stellan Skarsgård), outwardly more determined to corner her into a damn tagline. As Claire understandably says to her mother during the charade, “Why did you even bother coming?”

Only Claire shows genuine signs for concern, whose eye on Justine every now and then is a fragile indicator of that sisterly bond. It’s not a wholly reliable, loving relationship, but they clearly both deal with their own issues as well as that of the other sibling. Incidentally, Melancholia divides into two parts, simply titled ‘Justine’ and then ‘Claire’.

With the first chapter entirely at the wedding reception, an environment brimming with public discomfort, but centrally the subtle deterioration of Justine. Giving off increased bouts of pessimistic energy, gradually spacing out, finding every opportunity to get up and leave the social gathering. Taking a short ride on a golf buggy before peeing in a hole; or to tend to her nephew; plonking herself in a bath, in her wedding dress, and falling into a trance.

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Melancholia is one of the most honest portrayals of debilitating depression that cinema has to offer. Justine is undoubtedly a troubled soul, any enthusiasm she can muster is dwindling by the second. Eventually, as we merge into Claire’s chapter, Justine has sank into somber lethargy, hardly able to walk on her own. And with it, the depiction of anxiety through Claire’s own nervous condition.

The overwhelming sense of doom also has a logical place. The huge planet that is apparently meant to pass by the Earth, is causing Claire all manner of frenzy. In fact, she is genuinely terrified, though those good old scientists, and her husband, John, believe the natural order of calculations. John even raises his eyebrows at Claire’s tinkering with the internet, forbidding her to pay attention to the doomsday mongers in cyberspace.

Now deep in depression, Justine is almost promoting her negativity as the norm. That the world is evil, that it is stupid to believe she is worried about the planet’s course for Earth. Claire makes Justine meatloaf, but she breaks down eating it, saying “it tastes like ashes.” Justine has resigned herself to bleak reality, and thus becomes a perfect match for the impending planetary collision.

A physical embodiment of this comes with the infamous nude scene from Dunst, as Justine lays on an embankment, gazing into the great beyond. Unable to function properly around people, Justine is seemingly embracing the oncoming end. A kind of forthcoming decomposition of both the body and the mind.

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I believe that Justine just knew there were six hundred and seventy-eight beans in the jar, from one of the wedding party’s guessing games. That her blunt responses, when perhaps those around her need some tender, loving care, are a vindication of that positive human nature. That sticking your fingers in the jam jar sure beats waiting around for the inevitable.

Justine’s offhand behavior is often a kind of blessing. That somehow through the story-telling, and Kirsten Dunst’s beautiful, pensive performance, audience members that suffer an immeasurable, endless depression and anxiety, are somehow given an arm around their shoulder. Ecstatic she won the Best Actress prize in Cannes, even after her director was booted out of the competition for his unfiltered public mumblings.

Melancholia is a fascinating, haunting human story. Much more than the frantic rumblings of a pending doom. The film has a grace not present in many corners of von Trier’s other works. And as you get wrapped up in the comfort of sadness, there’s an uplifting light in the grim dark. A wistful feeling of exhilaration and all-empowering panic. Dare I say that the character of Justine, in all her melancholic glory, is strangely soothing. Being crushed to death under the weight of Justine’s anguish makes the end of the world that much more bearable.