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…

So, this is what happened to Mary Jane after Mephisto changed history so she and Peter Parker never got married. I could tell through this whole movie that she missed Spidey!

For a lot of this it seemed like: Depressed, Fragile, Teetering on the Edge of Hysteria Women: Another film by Lars Von Trier. Every woman in this movie was an absolute mess and all the men were just there to help them make it through the next hour without them falling completely apart. The men are firmly in control and the women barely manage to take a walk without a meltdown.

But about 2 hours into the film, my worries were alleviated. Von Trier made his film precisely this…

Lars von Trier's latest film centers on sisters Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and their relationship in the week leading up to the possible end of the world. The first portion of the film deals with the wedding of Justine and how she slowly begins to lose her mind during the process. The second part of the film focuses on Claire as she slowly begins to crack when it appears that another planet is about to hit Earth.

MELANCHOLIA isn't going to hit with as much controversy as many of the director's earlier works but I think it's safe to say that the meaning of the story will be debated for years. I'm sure you could show this…