Melancholia

I didn't really want to go but I did. I got dressed up, went to a nice dinner, sat nicely for a couple hours, clapped when others clapped, and in the end, I felt nothing.

Don't get me wrong, I had an appreciation for what I witnessed. The skill to execute what they did and the years of practice to achieve those skills is amazing. But still nothing.

That is how I felt after watching this movie. I was appreciative of what it took to accomplish the movie but I felt nothing towards it. I guess I should reiterate my point because IMDb wants 600 characters but I thought my review was quite good with 112 to spare.

I don't like this film, nor do I love it. I won't watch it again. But it is a 10/10 movie for making me feel things so intense I haven't felt in a long time.

This movie is about depression, and it's portrayed in a beautiful way. Sometimes it's achingly slow, other times a ton of things happen all at once. But the dread remains.

The movie is divided in two parts; Justine and Claire. And their ways of dealing with life is really different. I won't spoil anything but do know that both sections intertwine but don't necessarily deal with each other very directly.

Lars von Trier is a master at making movies that are both equally beautiful and destructive. I finished watching it two hours ago but the pain in my chest hasn't gone away. And that to me is quite the accomplishment. He knows how to portray pain in a way that is so accurate it's scary.

This movie completely freaked me out. It was SO well done, but if you've ever suffered from serious depression it really gets under your skin.

People I know who watched this movie thought it was boring and didn't understand it. I understood it very well. I have never seen a better metaphor for depression, and the seductiveness of "giving in."

If you're very depressed, don't watch this movie alone.

This is not an easy movie to watch. It's tough from the very beginning - a prologue prequel with music by Wagner and an apocalyptic perspective. Any movie in which dead birds fall from the sky in the first three minutes is not going to be light and fluffy.

But this movie, about deep melancholia experienced by Justine (Kirstin Dunst), the principal character, and the melancholia of the potential end of life itself, is an artistic triumph. Great acting, great cinematography, great music. Even the sometimes puzzling plot - the post-prologue movie comes in two halves - is engrossing and pregnant with underlying meaning. The three principal characters all represent a point on the compass of human feelings: Depression, anxiety, and something resembling nice normalcy. How each deals with the apocalypse is a well-threaded effort.

While the movie is dark, it is by no means humorless. The wedding that occupies the first half of the movie has a great deal of fun alongside the depression.

Not a movie for everyone, and a bit too long, but if you watch it, stick with it. You may not want to see it twice but you could be glad you saw it once.

There's a serious polarity in the reviews for this film,and I'm not surprised. If you've ever suffered depression this bleak movie will hit hard, and you'll pick up on all of the subtle messages it sends out. It's done so well it can't be anything other than achingly familiar. The despondency, and the frustration the sufferer feels at their own despondency, in particular, is well conveyed.

Unfortunately I think a large chunk of the people who've seen this film (and there aren't many who have, sadly) went to it expecting a slightly arty apocalypse movie. It's not a smarter Deep Impact. The (blue) planet Melancholia is just a metaphor for depression. Unrelenting and irresistible, Melancholia has the main character in its thrall.

For those who don't "get" this movie, no it's not a pretentious, pseudo intellectual flick. Rather it's a well crafted take on the fine detail of a subject matter that you have been fortunate enough to not have had to understand. Long may that be the case.