Typically I can find the words to describe how I feel regarding a film as the credits are still rolling on the screen. My mind builds up various thoughts throughout and I cannot wait to unleash them as soon as possible, but I had to sleep on Melancholia before typing up this review. In fact, I'm still not quite sure if I am ready.

A graceful and fascinating look at a subject like depression, I found moments within the film that were utterly spellbinding, and in those moments I was sure I was in love with this work by Von Trier. However, every so often I was forced to question whether the nature of the storytelling and the pacing of…

"The film needs to be slower and duller at the start so that the viewers who walked into the wrong theatre have time to leave before the main action starts."
-Andrei Tarkovsky

An enigmatic feature with wannabe Tarkovskian cinematography, planetary imagery, a classical score and a high-budget-looking Dogme style? Trier must be out of his mind!

Not quite.

Melancholia's two very first shots are references to cinematic influences:

- The first pays respect to L'année dernière à Marienbad (1961).
- The second shot displays the famous painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder entitled Jagers in de Sneeuw (The Hunters in the Snow), previously featured in two Tarkovsky masterpieces.

The film feels, above all, as an attempt to fix the evident…

CW: Depression

Melancholia is hard to talk about. Why I like it, what I think is good about it. It's difficult to verbalize why this movie has continued to stick with me as it has. I think that's because, for me, my enjoyment has less to do with what the film is about and more with how the movie makes me feel every time I watch it. I've struggled with depression since I was 15, staring into pools of water, wanting to be swallowed up by them and disappear. I would get frustrated at myself because I knew how good I have it, and yet I felt terrible most of the time without explanation. The closest way I could describe…

Taking 4 hours to watch this because I kept being interrupted by house-mates and course-mates' invitations to either eat or drink and keep on smiling was like playing some twisted sing-along version of this film.
Melancholia acts as a dark step-sister to The Tree of Life: a small scale story in a large scale universe but rather than a glorious inhalation of divine forces, we are stood in stark, crumbling opposition to abyssal cosmic indifference.
Dunst turns inwards - depression is, after all, egoism without consent- as "meaning" seems to rear its head in final ugly swansong by those around her. The second half of Melancholia is fascinating, harrowing, more thrilling (if that word even applies to this movie's pace)…