Melancolía

Lars Von Trier creates a mesmerizing, visually gorgeous and often-moving alloy of family drama. (...) With a considerably less visceral assault on our sensibilities (though Justine does use her riding crop on a horse over-vigorously), in no way makes this one of the tamer entries in his remarkable filmography. Rather, it’s a bold and wholly powerful restatement of first principles.

A dark apocalyptic masterpiece. Nothing in “Melancholia” can match the dazzling momentum of its opening sequence, which has the visual splendor of expressionistic sci-fi and the refined look of a morbid fashion commercial. It’s also a handy guide to the ominous event that concludes the movie and haunts everything leading up to that point—namely, the end of the world. Revisiting the bleak tones of his last feature, “Antichrist” - which began with a similarly hyper-stylized prologue - Von Trier has constructed a mesmerizing elaboration on his favorite motifs, masterfully elevating them to an epic scale.

An Infinitely Morbid Delight. On paper, Melancholia should be nothing more than an Armageddon meets Deep Impact-esque affair, full of near misses and romantic sub plots. A nearby planet is on course to collide with and destroy the Earth. But this being a Lars von Trier movie, a man who has previously explored topics including self-mutilation, it was never going to be an entirely straight forward movie that sees Bruce Willis save the day once again.

La atmósfera de la cinta recuerda la de Solaris, de Tarkovsy, y el aura que desprende la proximidad de Melancholia se refuerza lenta y sutilmente hasta sumergir al espectador en un simulacro de suspense hechizante. Como Justine, el público espera el previsible fin. Como Clara, teme el desenlace. Von Trier consigue con holgura su objetivo gracias a un toque de sentimentalismo en los últimos instantes. Una bella emoción que se diferencia del desenfreno sensacionalista de Armageddon y otras obras que abordan el mismo tema como Deep Impact. Melancholia no es, en absoluto, una superproducción como las anteriormente citadas. Como mucho, podemos compararla con Donnie Darko. La película de Richard Kelly tiene el mismo modo de abordar el fin del mundo a partir de la melancolía de un personaje, pero Lars von Trier añade un toque de clase y una profundidad autobiográfica que hacen de Melancholia el estandarte de un género que ahora tiene el listón bien alto.

An authoritative performance by Kirsten Dunst (probably her best yet), a magnificent Wagnerian soundtrack, and effective use of the film’s otherworldly country-house location cannot disguise the fact that this is one of Von Trier’s most dramatically flaccid films to date.