On 2nd Viewing...9-21-12 (Not About Depression)

Well, seeing as how both Kirsten Dunst, and Lars himself said it's about depression...glad you found another takeaway.

What's it going to be then, eh?

The director said that the movie was about depression (whit another view).

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WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD.

For the articulate and the non-articulate, or the deeply intelligent and the shallow stupid, Melancholia is indeed a film about depression, not a simple depiction on depression, but utilising dramatic devices to confer upon the viewer a means to understand what it 'feels' like to be a depressive. Conferring the 'feel' of depression is the film's whole purpose.

It is set amidst beauty and splendour and wealth, virtues which for a normal, non-depressive person, would bring a quality to their life, but to a depressive with all these virtues, they would be unable to empathise with them as quality, but as irrelevant and meaningless.

Depressive people lose sense of purpose and meaning, essential human requirements to live life at all.

The first dramatic device Triers utilises is Justine's prophetic power (the guessing of the amount of beans in the jar?), she knows something bad is going to happen, and she attaches this 'knowing' to the new planetary body she spies amongst the stars, and as the film progresses she becomes more certain, and in her certainty, she becomes more depressed.

We watch her as she slowly begins to dislocate the importance of things from their materiality and ownership of them. Nothing matters now, it's all coming to an end, whereas Clare seeks to hold onto things that she considered made her life worth living, and throughout she cannot understand Justine's attitude and behaviour. Unlike Justine, Clare cannot come to terms with the impending doom. Her husband, equally, cannot accept what is going to happen, and once he is certain, he cannot face it and self-euthanases.

However, Justine emerges from her dark depression with a stoicism and forbearance, and helps Clare meet her end with a little dignity.

A true masterpiece.
Some of Von Trier's finest work.

I'm an hour and five minutes in and considering bailing out on this film. This film seems to be made by two different people. A cinematographer that wants beautiful top notch shots to suck you into a great deep emotional state to receive a story, and one camera op that has Parkinson's. If I'm expected to suspend disbelief of an underlying plot line that is scientifically ridiculous, then there better be something else to distract me from that. Playing the exact same classical theme over some pretty shots is not enough. That musical piece should have been used sparingly (like ONCE) for the climax of the film, like in Excalibur (which used the same theme so much more effectively) I'll post again if I make it though this but I was expecting more from Dunst than I'm seeing so far. The writing is fine in creating family tension but going out in the daylight and seeing constellations....IN THE FOG. Come on! if you're making a point that the character can see things that other people can't then don't show them to the audience so they can see them. This is just bad writing or bad directing or maybe even bad post editing.

Did you tell LUKE..? Is THAT who you could tell??

Depression comes to us all in many parts of our lives, no matter what way and how. The planet Melancholy was put there in the movie as an expression, to deliver a point, (I'm not saying it's put there surrealistically) to express this kind of equality shared among people which is Depression. Justine suffered from it and she saw the end of life as a rescue. Claire's life'd been easy, with a rich husband and a good kid, and it's understandable that she was extremely depressed by the way all of it could/just ended so quickly. In short, she was struck by the same amount of depression that Justine received.

At the end, we saw the three sat in the "magic cave" Justine and her nephew mentioned throughout the movie. It presented "the acceptance", and mentally, the best way to do it. That's also why Justine called Claire's plan of having wine and singing songs "a piece of *beep* for it'll be just another artificial pretentiousness. Claire can't go through it because she can't accept the fact that her great, great life was being thrown away so easily, and disappeared only after a few secs. Justine was the opposite, she was quite disturbed and confused by the way Claire acted, but with calm, facing her back against the planet.

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My Top Animated: http://www.imdb.com/list/zyDiSPMGtuM/

this disgusting piece of crap is trash.