MovieChat Forums > Melancholia (2011) Discussion > What depression feels like - the meaning...

What depression feels like - the meaninglessness of existence

posted 11 years ago by JeopardyLeyton
45 replies | jump to latest

I just finished this and it is incredible!

To me, it first depicted depression really well- how difficult it is for those without it to understand. 'Just BE happy' etc etc. Even when she tries to act the part and smile, they know she's lying and that infuriates her family even more - it's not enough to act happy, she has to be happy. Everyone else thinks it's easy to get into a bath, but it is overwhelmingly difficult and pointless - when will you ever stop bathing, why do people bathe, to be clean, but why be clean when there is no point to life?

The end of the world - complete annihilation of all life, justifies the depressive in the face of all this criticism and the failure she feels she is to her family - this is why Justine begins to come around as the planet moves closer - it affirms that her inertia and hopelessness were warranted.

When you're deep dark inside depression, something as catastrophic as the collision with another planet can feel like it would be the only thing to really show people how meaningless existence is for you. There is no enjoyment, no love, no pleasant tastes (the meatloaf becomes ashes).

The depressive is completely consumed in this viewpoint, without the neurological capacity to experience anything else - this is why Justine thinks she 'knows things' and that she sees how alone everyone is and how pointless everything is when nobody else can, now confirmed by the impending destruction of Earth.

Towards the end though, Justine does grasp something about life - she takes the child and begins building the 'magic cave' with him - they give themselves something to do to occupy their last couple of hours. To take their mind away from what is happening, they create purpose, and that is what we are all doing throughout life, through imbuing our acts and gestures, feelings and circumstances with meaning. All our lives consist of building a 'magic cave' to keep out the pointlessness of existence - we structure meaning from whatever we stumble across along the way, or we strive to find meaning for building our cave, and we sit inside it until the end comes.

[–] amnesiac-kid 11 years ago

agreed.

[–] xpmule 11 years ago

depicted depression ?
that is fair but what is a logical response to a planet crashing into ours ?
happiness ? LOL

[–] JeopardyLeyton 11 years ago

What I mean is that to someone suffering from depression, it feels as horrifically hopeless as it would feel if a planet was coming to crash into the Earth.

[–] coolbrett 11 years ago

I honestly don't think it can be explained or imagined, until you experience it for yourself. Being heartbroken over your partner dumping you doesn't even come close to the pain involved. The BEST way I can describe it is this: you ever seen the movie The Counselor? Where Imagine how he felt the second he realised that was put around his neck, knowing what it does and how long you have left and that it CANNOT be stopped. Well depression is like that instant feeling he got, only permanent. It's like your whole world has come to an end and this is how you will feel forever. You have this overwhelming urge to kill yourself, because that's the only relief you get. You can't control it, or suppress it, or get your mind focused on something else. It takes over your body, and the pain is constant. It really is like a state of pure TERROR. I know it can be hard to imagine, like why are you feeling terror when there's no danger around you? Well it's all going on inside your body. No one or nothing can help, and your own body becomes a prison. The only reason I'm alive today is because I really didn't have the balls to kill myself simply because there's no easy way to do it. Even though there have been many times where I desperately wanted to, I put up with the pain. And my god was it hard. So when you hear of suicides, it's not because it's just easier that way for them, or they might as well be dead because life's not that much fun. It's because they had absolutely no relief and this felt like the ONLY option.

[–] JeopardyLeyton 11 years ago

Yes I completely agree - it is almost impossible to explain accurately how it feels. I thought this film did quite a good job of showing what it's like though, or at least what it has felt like for me. The terror and helplessness you feel is almost akin to the terror and helplessness you would feel if a planet was hurtling towards Earth, although obviously with depression, there is no such threat, so everyone around you just can't understand because they assume that emotions like sadness and happiness are always caused by external things, when in fact those emotions can occur independently of anything due to physiological reasons.

[–] coolbrett 11 years ago

Very interesting. I actually copied and pasted my last post because I wrote the same thing on the Robin Williams board. But now I'll respond to your thoughts. I never really thought a whole lot about this movie but your thoughts on it are very interesting to hear. It makes sense to me now. I think humanity really just wants to be happy, and we all constantly strive for it by finding reasons to be happy in everyday life. We help people when they're down, not for a reward, but because it's in our nature to want to be happy and find meaning in our lives. But when you have depression, suddenly you become 'wired' a different way to most people. You're not on the same wavelength as the people around you. You misinterpret people's actions and intentions, and there is no meaning in anything. You may think you can 'fake it' and blend in, but human instincts tell us something is wrong with you. Living in society becomes extremely tough. Are you familiar with the author Cormac McCarthy? I think he thinks of the world similar to Justine in this movie. I'm not sure if he has depression, but he's certainly seen how bleak and meaningless the world is, or can be. Many of us have to try to try to look for meaning in life and keep us mentally occupied, by building a magic cave and shielding us from the harsh world. When I say harsh world, it may or may not actually be the world, but rather our interpretation of it. We only see the world through our own eyes, so when you feel depressed, that becomes how we see the world and the people who dwell on it. You can't separate yourself from yourself, and just get over it.

[–] JeopardyLeyton 11 years ago

I was on the Robin Williams board for a brief time too, but got a bit upset at the number of people saying he was selfish or a coward when really it is impossible to ascribe rational intentions to someone with severe depression, because as you say, all interpretations are skewed very differently to everyone else's. My favourite line from Shakespeare is 'There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so,' from Hamlet, which is like what you say - when you are depressed, your reality is that the world is a harsh place, people are hostile, nothing is safe, nothing goes well. The objective truth is that the world is neither harsh, nor wonderful, it just is. Everything else is down to our interpretation.

I started taking antidepressants a few years ago, and it was amazing the change in my perspective when they started to work - suddenly and very subtly, things just seemed easier, people were just people and everyone was a potential friend. It was wonderful! It did get worse again but hasn't completely slid back to what it used to be.

One thing about Justine I related to was her inability to do simple things like take a bath or get into a taxi - those things are what others find so hard to understand, because they should be so simple and easy and they think 'why can't you JUST DO IT!?!' and you can't even explain properly why you can't.

I think I read 'The Road' by McCarthy - very bleak, but honest, too. I do hope that you have come out of, or are managing, your depression okay. It truly is one of the worst illnesses, in fact I think mental illnesses in general are some of the worst, because they strike at the core of your very existence, and who you are.

[–] 11 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Gary-Oldman 10 years ago

I had started seeing a psychiatrist at age 11 but wasn't diagnosed with clinical depression until 13 (as is/was the law.) Recently I was diagnosed with a terminal illness, conveniently right when someone fell in love with, and proposed, to me. Irony right? My 'father' is like John's character and simply dismisses any problem that can't be bought or paid to go away.

I agree, the struggle just to do regular everyday activities is what's the hardest. It's a way we self-sabatoge, as Justine does when she has sex with the other man on her wedding night.

Between my physical illness and my mental (clinical depression) I definitely think that the mental illness is the worst.

[–] recklesscow 10 years ago

I can relate to this. I suffered from clinical depression and suicidal idealization for years and while I currently don't have a terminal illness...yet...I have a medical issue that is threatening to become one should things not improve and that really terrifies me.

But I wanted to address the self-sabotage, as it is something I've found hard to justify to those who shrug it off as creating drama. For me it was more about fueling the darkness I was enveloped in to justify to myself why the world was a cold, dark place because I felt letting anything contradict that would be perpetuating a lie. There were many times during my depression that fate handed me an opportunity to achieve stereotypical happiness (economic advantages and advances in my love life), but I always had the desire to sabotage it for myself, and often did. I once acted out to ruin my engagement with the only person sane enough to entertain the idea of marrying me because I felt like, sooner or later, even if I did go through with it, it would fail due to my shortcomings and I was able to convince myself I was acting preemptively to speed up the inevitable. It's that lack of hope and conviction that anything good can happen to you in any lasting way that makes you feel justified in ruining the little good you have to perpetuate your own world view and ensure yourself that you're right. This was the absolute hardest mindset I had to break free from and the only remnant of my depression that I still struggle with today. I still get the urge to completely undo any progress I've made in a single day--years of work down the drain--and sometimes I feel like I'm teetering on the edge of acting on it.

[–] scottylans 10 years ago

Freedom, release, justice.

[–] Cemeteri666 9 years ago

No it's not really happiness. Basically depressives feel that the world is over for them so in a world where the Earth is actually doomed the depressive is the one who has the normal outlook. That's one of the humorous things about the film.

[–] lulusuttonian 10 years ago

Beautiful. You are spot on.

[–] lrn-mai 10 years ago

I watched this film and found myself entirely internally conflicted. I really wanted to hate it but I couldn't. I gave it a low rating and reveled in my tiny victory. And then got annoyed by how much I didn't hate it and gave it an average rating. And then just eventually surrendered to myself and gave it the rating I wanted to give to begin with - for the very reasons you articulated for me.

When I hear people nag about their reactions to this film - all I hear are the nagging of Justine's relatives who just want her to BE happy. I think they're missing the point of the film - its one of those movies that is brimming with symbolic meaning in every single part. The whole piece was an homage and expression to the experience that is hopelessness. At first I wanted to deny that I could understand what it meant, but I eventually had to tip my hat off to it and admit - that basically is how I feel a lot of the time.

[–] luvie2003 10 years ago

I completely agree with you.

[–] Rainer90 10 years ago

Very poetic message. My connection to the film is very similar. I could resonate with Justine as well as Claire on different levels.

[–] HenryCW 10 years ago

While the OP's interpretation might largely correspond with what the director/scriptwriter intended, I don't find the situation depicted in the film a plausible one, and so whatever message it intended was weakened as a result. First of all, I am not sure what the significance of the wedding party was. It was not clear why Justine, who was so depressed that she was not even able to raise her legs to go for a bath, somehow managed to find a husband and go through a wedding ceremony and party. The scenario was highly unlikely, and something was left unexplained here.

More important, I don't really think the reaction of a depressed person (even someone in a deep depression) to impending death (the end of the world in the film) is that much different from that of one who is not. All of us, depressed or not, know that we have to die someday. The certainty of death and the uncertainly of God (except for the most devout) or afterlife mean we - like Justine - are all aware of the "meaninglessness" of life and that ultimately there would be nothing. But nothing could be helped, and most people manage to live on and perhaps try to something meaningful before their time is up. Justine didn't need the coming of the planet collision to demonstrate that she was "right" about something that everybody already knows. For the same reason, I don't really find her suddenly becoming calmer as the end approached really believable. I have known depressed people and they are not in a hurry to kill themselves. Many of them feel life is meaningless precisely because it ultimately ends in death, and so they are afraid of death just like everyone else.

If your interpretation of Justine's change of behavior is correct, I wonder how such a person would react to people with terminal illnesses, or those dying in accidents, natural disasters, or planes crashing into skyscrapers. Would she be happier (or less depressed) because all these prove that she was "right" to be depressed?

I just hope that Justine was able to buy the idea of a "mountain magic cave" earlier, and then she would be causing less pain to those around her.

[–] chiaro_di_luna 10 years ago

I found Justine's ability to temporarily be "normal," and then complete collapse under the strain of that effort on her wedding night, to be completely relatable.

As for her strength in the face of certain death at the end - her capacity to actually comfort her sister and child, in stark contrast to the husband's reaction - again, rings wholly true to me. When you live in the shadow of death for a long time, its coming at last is neither a shock nor truly unwelcome.

Justine was "causing pain" to those around her? It's not exactly optional, you know. Being ill causes pain to those around you . . . I have close experience with severe mental illness and advanced-stage cancer, and in both cases it is heartbreaking to watch someone you love be obliterated by a disease.

[–] crissttigaldames 9 years ago

Nah, it's just another example of "rich white girl depression". Think of starving African kids with flies in their eyes who aren't beautiful like Kirsten Dunst. Would we care?

What a resentful and hateful person you are. And with zero empathy.

[–] Cemeteri666 9 years ago

Manco82 actually has a point.

If you look at the historical depictions of melancholia it is often depicted as a rich person's illness, and I doubt that Lars Von Trier was unaware of this. The eighteenth century writers on the subject of melancholy often prescribed hard work as the cure, since it could take a person's mind off depressive feelings. To say that starving children in Africa don't have depression is absurd, but there is something to be said about how the need to survive overwhelms other emotional drives.

The fact that Justine comes from a very wealthy family and is allowed to be in a position where her severe depression can manifest without major consequences (homelessness, for instance) is significant.

However, the fact that even the wealthy suffer despite their security shows the universal frailty of humanity and the need for compassion and love, which I feel is expressed at the end of the film.

In the end, Justine and her sister and nephew die along with the rest of the world, showing that we are all ultimately dust no matter what our origins.

[–] blakenash 10 years ago

Melancholia was the first movie that really sent me spiralling into a deep and confusing self-assessment, a journey of self-discovery I'm still traveling. The themes of hopelessness and the mind abandoning the physical hit home very intensely. I discovered a truth in Justine that reflected myself, albeit on a smaller scale.

Depression is a sneaky bastard that can be loud and abrasive and all-consuming, or subtle and hidden away. I believe I fall into the latter category, and recent events have forced me to own up to the well of sadness in my heart, my own sense of helplessness. I look at things I've done, things others have done, to me or themselves or others, and I see the world in all its busy, chaotic glory and sometimes I wonder what the point of it all is, because god knows what the solution to pain is. I wonder what it would be like to leave this world, as we all do one time or everyday. And above all else, I wonder how much pain I must suffer before I do cross over.

I have nothing new to offer the conversation, no new information on how to battle those feelings, or whether battling them is the right option. Who knows what come next after we live in this waking world. But I know depression, I know it in my heart. I think writing this post is the first time I've ever come close to saying the words aloud. But I thank Melancholia for introducing me to that part of myself. What a wonderful, exhilarating, horrifying, depressing film. I don't appreciate critics of the science in this film because theyve missed the point. There's no point questioning the science because, in relation to the true narrative, there's no point questioning the why of depression. There's no point screaming at the screen, telling Justine to just get in the *beep* bath, because she just can't! The same as Melancholia could not be stopped. No matter how unlikely everyday people may think it to be to just be happy on your wedding night, or get out of bed for days, sometimes, thats all someone can manage. And in this film, all they could do was watch the world be destroyed by a phenomena beyond understanding.

Lars Von Trier absolutely nailed it.