Melancholia or depression: the pain of the soul of those who suffer chained and invaded by life with no words to reach them, no gestures to comfort them, to the taedium vitae of those who for too long feel the nausea of existence.

Melancholia: the planet that tries to dance with the earth by producing death.

From whatever perspective one looks at it, existential or apocalyptic Lars Von Trier's film again cannot leave one indifferent.

It invades with the music of Tristan and Isolde, of the Wagner so close to certain known circles......

But to be bothered by the "notes" of a tireless provocateur is foolish!

Two chapters, two women, two sisters.

Justine on the day of her wedding luxuriously arranged by her very rich sister Claire.

The first scene, after the prologue, stirs the anxiety of an unhappy choice, that of a limousine too long to be elegant and too uncomfortable to lead the bride and groom to the rituals of a wedding that immediately portends failure.

The first chapter tells the story of that incomprehensible day, a mystery and delirium wished for by custom, as Justine and Claire's mother claims all her disappointment about the church celebration she did not attend including all the rituals she despises.

Justine does nothing but drift away from the bridal party, fails to keep a covenant, fails to be happy or even to look happy....

Early images had shown the bride in a white dress and long strands of gray wool, large spider webs binding her ankles, a portent of the impediments of illness and who knows of the wedding itself.

There is frequent talk of money and happiness during an endless party, almost a nightmare accompanied by a sleazy game-beans.

Justine does not make it even though she has tried hard.

The second chapter converges on Claire welcoming her sister, who is completely animated by depression, into her castle while her nephew continues to call her steel-breaking auntie, and not wrongly.

For while the other humans, too humans will live out their last days terrified of death and the end of the world, only she will recover because to think that a planet could frighten her is foolish! Rather, she will welcome the planet naked, by a stream, among nature, almost waiting to be fertilized by the grace of the end of the world.

The all-too-human humans are afraid, even though scientists' predictions rule out collusion with the planet. As already known, for Lars Von Trier, science at best can be right.

Only for the steel-breaking auntie the earth is bad and need not worry, if it ends, no one will notice.

Attachment to life leads to despair.

Only a melancholic is unable to marry because he cannot swear allegiance to the human; only a melancholic can wait for the end of the world as if it were the ultimate carnal union; only a melancholic has nothing to lose.

Only a melancholic ridicules those who do not understand depression and thus ridicules those who do not understand it.... beware!

GENIAL

27-Jun-2023 by Beatrice