3 reasons to watch “Melancholia” by Lars von Trier

1. Von Trier himself, of course. The thing is that this brawler, manipulator and defiler of good manners exists on a different scale than almost all of today’s, so to speak, art. For him, love has a price only if it is paid for by mortal self-sacrifice (“Breaking the Waves”). He believes in the dignity of only those who have known the abyss of humiliation (“Dogville”). For him, faith makes sense only if the devil really exists, even if in the person of a heartbroken European (“Antichrist”)… He measures a person by the laws of the Universe, and people for him, like planets, are just as significant and just as insignificant on a universal scale. Von Trier stated this directly in Melancholia, a film about relationships in one family against the backdrop of anticipation of the end of the world.

2. Parade of planets. The big planet Melancholia, rapidly rushing towards the Earth and threatening to destroy all life, turns out to be the only remedy for the small depression of a well-to-do blonde with dimples on her cheeks. Only a macro-scale threat, according to Trier, is capable of putting an end to useless rituals, marriages of essentially distant people, and other hellish family and social hypocrisy.

3. Changing a movie in the course of a movie. Von Trier changes the style inside the picture, and this must be seen with your own eyes. As an everyday, slightly lyrical drama, a little comedy turns into a saga about the end of the world, and the film language of Trier’s Dogma is replaced by a language borrowed from the Pre-Raphaelites. As if the characters are moving inside the canvas of John Everett Millais “The Death of Ophelia”.

Cast: Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gensburg, Charlotte Rampling, Kiefer Sutherland, John Hurt.

Victoria Belopolskaya