The screen fades to black and is replaced with a title card reading “Part Two: Claire”. It's been an undetermined amount of time since the wedding, I would guess a few weeks at most. Justine has come to stay with John and Claire, and we see she's regressed to an almost catatonic state as she can't do ANYTHING by herself. As they wait for Justine's taxi to arrive, John and Claire discuss Melancholia: a rogue planet that is due to fly by the Earth in five days. Claire worries it'll hit the Earth, but John assures her it's completely safe and it'll pass them by.
Justine can barely even walk, Claire
forced to guide her to the bathroom and bathe her. John is just
DISGUSTED by all this, and again I say: GET HER SOME FUCKING HELP! A
few days later Justine is beginning to get more functional, Claire
taking her riding again. Just like last time, Abraham will not cross
the bridge so Justine begins to SAVAGELY beat him with her riding
crop until Claire intervenes. Mmm, there goes all that sympathy I
had for Justine. Will that damn planet get here already? That same
night Claire sees Justine walking outside, almost in a trance. She
follows her, finding her lying naked on the ground and basking in the
moonlit grow of the approaching Melancholia.
Ladies, is this a thing? Between this
and Another Earth I really wonder if I'm not missing out on
some big secret. I will never get over how identical this scene is
to Another Earth, I would love to see the Vegas odds on people
on the opposite sides of the globe coming up with the exact same idea
for their movies at nearly the exact same time. Justine's is a lot
more sexual though, as she really seems to be getting off on
Melancholia as she runs her hands over her body. The next day Claire
returns from the nearby village, having bought a lot of pills because
she's still very concerned about Melancholia. John notices this,
locking them up to make sure she doesn't overdose on them.
We catch up with Justine, who has
completely come back to life after fucking a planet. She is now very
negative, telling Claire Melancholia WILL hit the Earth. They have a
very fascinating exchange that I will transcribe:
Justine: The Earth is evil. We don't
need to grieve for it.
Claire: What?
Justine: Nobody will miss it.
Claire: But where would Leo grow?
Justine: All I know is life on Earth is evil.
Claire: Then maybe life somewhere else.
Justine: But there isn't.
Claire: How do you know?
Justine: Because I know things.
Claire: Oh yes, you always imagined you did.
Justine: I know we're alone.
Claire: I don't think you know that at all.
Justine: 678. The bean lottery. Nobody guessed the amount of beans in the bottle.
Claire: No, that's right.
Justine: But I know. 678.
Claire: Well, perhaps. But what does that prove?
Justine: That I know things. And when I say we're alone, we're alone. Life is only on Earth, and not for long.
So... Justine has some kind of psychic
powers? What? Of everything in this film, this is the element that
is the MOST nonsensical. It seems to me a bigger deal should have
been made of this, as opposed to NOTHING. While I've always felt it
helps to explain Justine's depression, that her imminent knowledge of
the future made her miserable her entire life, it's such a left field
concept to throw into play this late in the story. I love how Claire
just casually brushes off Justine's revelation about the correct
number of beans with a “yeah, well...”. This also makes me
wonder if Justine really CAN shoot Sith lightning out of her hands,
and if Von Trier didn't originally write this movie where she was a
superhero trying to save the planet.
Justine's powers are never mentioned
again, so don't dwell too much on this bizarre scene like I have.
The big night arrives, Melancholia passing by the Earth with no
consequence just like John said it would. And they all lived happily
ever after. Except Justine, one would assume.
Cue the credits.
Oh... it's still going? In the morning
Claire wakes up all smiles and happy thoughts, so caught up in her
reverie that she fails to notice John looking through his telescope,
panicked as fuck. She takes a nap in the afternoon, waking up to
find John missing. Worried, she starts searching their massive
estate for him. She checks the drawer John locked the pills up in,
seeing it is now empty. Uh oh. She tracks him down to the stables,
dead of an overdose. Wow, way to TOTALLY bitch out there Jack Bauer.
This sets Claire off, because now SHE knows what is going to happen
as well.
She grabs Leo and tries to drive off in
her van, but it won't start because even Lars Von Trier isn't immune
to cliché movie bullshit apparently. They hop into the golf cart,
Justine declining to accompany them since she knows the score. She
watches them leave on the cart, looking almost amused. Driving
towards town, the golf cart is stopped dead in its tracks by the
Magic Bridge of Doom. This is another confusing element of the
story, and can you tell I much prefer the first half of this movie to
the second? Why can't they cross the damn bridge? This would be
fine if you chalked it up as some kind of inevitability of fate
thing, but ten why was Claire able to cross it when she bought pills?
Just so John could get his bitch ticket out of this movie? That
reeks of convenience for the sake of the plot, which I am not
accustomed to seeing in these kind of films.
It begins to hail, so Claire carries
Leo back to the mansion instead of trying to run to town. On their
way back she cuts through the golf course, passing our old friend the
19th hole. Now this is important because on multiple
occasions John brought up that his estate had an 18 hole golf course,
so this 19th hole shouldn't exist. What does this mean?
Well, no one KNOWS except Von Trier, and even that's debatable. But
it has inspired several theories such as the entire second half is a
dream a still catatonic Justine is having and that's she's an
unreliable narrator, hence strange details such as this. Melancholia
is just a metaphor for her own depression crashing down upon her.
Another is this was just subverting
John's know-it-all attitude, and that it was foreshadowing how wrong
he was about the fly by since every other word out of John's mouth
basically amounted to “Science is God, science is infallible!”.
The fact he didn't even know how many holes his own golf course had
was a way of illustrating this. In an interview Von Trier was asked
about the significance of the 19th hole, and he replied
very tongue-in-cheek that it symbolized limbo. Unfortunately, many
missed the sarcastic tone of this answer and have taken this as fact.
Even the IMDB trivia section for Melancholia lists this as
such.
Claire, utterly defeated, is resigned
to her fate. She tries to make plans with Justine about how to spend
their last living hours on Earth, but Justine goes into full
Gaby-mode and just mocks her. Justine is much warmer towards Leo
though, telling him she'll help build a magic fort that'll protect
them. They spend the rest of their time doing this, building a
teepee out of large sticks that they sit in. Claire joins them,
Justine instructing everyone to hold their hands and close their
eyes. Right on schedule, Melancholia enters the atmosphere and
SMASHES THEM INTO OBLIVION.
Cue the credits.
Downer ending, much? From the start,
Von Trier spoiled the ending to the movie by saying everyone was
going to die. He said he wanted to tell a story not about the end of
the world, but rather how people would deal with such a thing. He
got the idea from a therapy session, where his therapist told him
depressed people handle bad situations the best, as they're always
prepared for the worst. I wouldn't say he necessarily conveyed that
idea because after John commits suicide things start getting really
weird thanks to Justine, but nonetheless it's highly entertaining to
watch things unfold.
It's kind of funny how the first half
of the movie is better than the second half, the half that actually
involves the main plot. The wedding is almost its own story, barely
tied to Claire's story outside of Justine's fascination with the red
star. But this is were Kirsten Dunst was acting her arse off, as you
get to witness the complete breakdown of a character that originally
starts off glowing.
Dunst was rightfully awarded the Best
Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival for her performance in
this, hopefully reminding a lot of people that she is actually a
great actress. I've always felt she got WAY too much shit for
playing Mary Jane in the Spider-Man movies, she was doing the
best she could with what she was given. It wasn't her fault that her
character was written SO ATTROCIOUSLY that to this day you can't
convince me Joe Quesada didn't secretly write all her lines, as he
hates Mary Jane more than he hates cancer.
Despite boasting a 77% Fresh score on
Rotten Tomatoes, Melancholia is still a very divisive film. A lot of
people like to say it's boring and doesn't have much of a story, both
of which I suppose I can see that perspective. But I wasn't really
worried about these things as the fantastic acting from everyone
carried the film for me, keeping me interested the entire time from
scene to scene to see what they'd do next. It's not perfect, there
are a few missteps, but nothing is perfect after all. I'm not even
going to bother pointing out all the scientific inaccuracies
pertaining to gravity and whatnot, Von Trier clearly stated he
ignored all science when he was writing this.
Another thing that kept the film moving
for me was how absolutely gorgeous it was, as you'd be hard pressed
to say this isn't one of the most beautiful films shot this decade.
It's amazing how this film had a budget of not even ten million
dollars and could have EASILY passed for a hundred million dollar
affair. This is also probably Von Trier's most accessible film, as
his usual style of experimental photography was largely abandoned for
a more traditional experience. When he did go for experimental,
namely the highly stylized opening, it made for a much more memorable
contrast with what followed later. This is definitely another film I
give a high recommendation to, it's one you should see more than once
because each viewing can give you a new insight into it, and that is
CERTAINLY something you don't give much of these days. Let's see how
it fares in the Dueling Movies Final Rundown:
1. What Did The Movies Look Like
They Were About?
A discovery of a previously unknown
planet near Earth completely changes the lives of everyone on Earth.
2. What Were The Movies Actually
About?
-In Another Earth, the
discovery of a parallel Earth causes our heroine Rhoda to try to
change both her life and the life of the man whose family she killed
for the better-In Melancholia, the discovery of a rogue planet that will possibly crash into Earth causes our heroine Justine to... not really care.
3. Which Movie Had The Better
Protagonist?
While both actresses were fantastic,
Rhoda wins because there's an arc to her character that inspires a
ray of hope. Not that there's anything wrong with a movie NOT having
a happy ending, Justine's actions in the second half of the movie get
quite vile at times.
4. Which Movie Had The Better
Love Interest?
Another Earth's John wins
out over the planet Melancholia in a landslide. John was a well
developed character with deeply visual pain that was brought out of
his hell by the same woman that caused it, cleaning himself up as
much as his landfill of a house. Melancholia's only action was to
get Justine naked before killing her.
5. Which Movie Had The Better
Antagonist?
This isn't really applicable here since
neither film had a traditional antagonist. Technically, Rhoda was
also Another Earth's antagonist since she killed John's
family and lied to his face for almost the entire movie, but it
wasn't out of malice. I'll give this to Melancholia, for that whole
“destroy the entire world” thing that most super villains can
only dream about.
6. Which Movie Had The Better Story?
Once again, I'm going with Another
Earth. Melancholia has a much more abstract story that
inspires much more interpretation than Another Earth's
very straightforward one, but Another Earth's made you
care about everyone much more because it took the time to let us get
to know them. This made every event feel more meaningful and I
genuinely cared about them.
7. Which Movie Wins?
Despite what I said earlier about
Melancholia being one of my favourite films, I am awarding
this to Another Earth. It is lacking Melancholia's
deeper allusions, but trades that for one of the most gripping
stories I've seen in a very long time that is still with me a week
after seeing it. That is something when most of the movie took place
in a filthy house and accomplished most of its storytelling through
nonverbal communication. This is the first major upset in Dueling
Movies, as I never thought for a second Melancholia would be
topped when I sat down to do this batch of reviews. I need more of
this whole “reviewing two awesome movies back to back thing” on
here!
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