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…

There's a lot to love about Melancholia, namely the achingly beautiful, enigmatic slow-motion openings that both reveal everything at once, and form an arcane symbolism to be answered gradually in the film. However, Part 2 came a little jarringly after Part 1 though not without its nebulous links: the disappearance of the star Antares and the apathetic psychology of Kirsten Dunst, who was as phenomenal at acting here as the rest of the cast. Only she can deliver lines such as being dragged in gray wool, and unleash hate upon her sister and boss in such a cold manner.

I felt like naming the planet "Melancholia" hammered in the symbolism way too obviously. Von Trier could have used a Roman…