Admirable film.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

This movie completely freaked me out. It was SO well done, but if you've ever suffered from serious depression it really gets under your skin.People I know who watched this movie thought it was boring and didn't understand it. I understood it very well. I have never seen a better metaphor for depression, and the seductiveness of "giving in."If you're very depressed, don't watch this movie alone.

Lars Von Trier is a risky filmmaker and with Melancholia he has channeled all that risqué factor into a good story with some fantastic visuals. The oddly beautiful Kirsten Dunst leads the film and is pretty much the main character whose wedding takes place amidst an apocalypse event(Earth is about to be hit by another planet!!). The acting is uniform throughout and the pacing is very good. Melancholia is a film that should be seen even if you don't like art movies. This one just might change your perspective.

It's a slow two hours and 15 minutes of film about sadness and isolation. Only people with a tranquil state of mind should ever bother watching this film.An eight-minute montage teaser played in slo-mo serves as a summary for the film itself, all the while being accompanied with the most fitting music, the prelude from Wagner's Tristan and Isolde. We are introduced to the three characters whose ultimate destruction we'll get to witness at the end of the film. The breathtaking image of the weary-trodden face of blonde Justine (Kirsten Dunst) with a bunch of birds falling down from the sky, who is later then seen to be wearing a wedding gown running across a forest with vines sprouting from trees dragging and holding on to her. Brunette Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is also seen running but carrying her kid Leo (Cameron Spurr), the golf course they are treading on seemingly have turned into a muddy quicksand, making it difficult for her to run across it. And then interspersed in between were scenes where the planets seem to be floating and waltzing in space, planets barely colliding are made to look like an eerily romantic visual of two planets on the verge of smooching. A definitive WTF moment. Mr. Trier made an Earth doomsday scenario so beautiful to gawk at. (But, hey, wait, I also live in that planet, me thought.) Then the explosive end as the small rogue planet diving into the Earth as if being swallowed. Having witnessed that, I almost stained my boxers.The film is divided in two parts, each focusing on the two sisters, who were seen in the introductory montage. Justine, who over the course of the film is revealed to be a copy writer and have been promoted as an art director by her boss while still at her wedding, and brunette Claire, who happily married to a castle/hotel operator. There are plenty of ways on how to approach and interpret the narrative of the film but what stands out are elements that transcends these interpretations. Whatever which way one chooses to view the film, it would still be a cinematic treat. One is the various characters' way of dealing with the impeding destruction of Earth by the planet Melancholia, this is much more pronounced in Justine's part of the story because the first part for the most part introduced the family at the center of the story. The other is the seeming irrationality of the path which the rogue planet traversing the solar system, that uncertainty just making it freaking worse on their nerves. Such unreliability in the predictions that would want to make people to kill whoever made them in the first place, like John (Kiefer Sutherland), Claire's husband, who reassures his wife at first that because Melancholia has first bypassed Mercury and Venus, and so Earth will be bypassed too, and it would be later revealed that he kind enough to spare others from doing that murderous deed to him. Also, the breathtaking cinematography capturing those visuals, and the gorgeous location that is the representation of opulence. It is worth noting that various reviews have mentioned the film's connection to Jean Genet's play The Maids. The way the story is told at the vantage point of two sisters is the most obvious one but perhaps it is the themes explored there that somehow illustrates and not illustrates the isolation that these two sisters has to go through. Nothing could be more disorientating than seeing two sources of natural light at night time, the moon and the rogue planet at the other side. This could be thought of as an homage to the iconic palace grounds scene in Last Year at Marienabad. But this time, the dual shadows of those very much manicured trees gives that creepy feeling. Pretty insane sight to behold which was enough to drive Justine a bit unhinged as she stares at that bluish-it Melancholia.As the film ends and the rogue planet begins to crash on Earth, the kid's innocence has somehow kind of given him that serenity that helped Leo to easily accepted his fate. Justine, having felt that the world betrayed her and has condemned the world as evil ended up not care much for it's destruction. And Claire is the only one who is tense, having settled in to her upper-crust life and living a fairy tale dream almost and for her to suddenly lose it all, that made it really tough on her, and it is understandable that she is the one who is visibly terrified as they all met their catastrophic end.The virtue of this film is in the simplicity of its vague premise that also imparts a philosophically profound exploration of the mysteries surrounding an arrival of an impending gloom.My rating: A-plus.

Von Trier mostly tackles issues related to the human condition and social norms rather than telling a straight forward story. He is more insightful and brave than most mainstream directors. Philosophical topics in the movie can be discussed in a much more thorough review.This movie is very beautifully shot and Kirsten Dunst it outstanding. The purpose and some of the intents in the movie are well planned and deliberate. Yet they are not on the form of slaps to the audience's face. This makes the movie a better experience whereas the pretentiousness, benignity or meaninglessness of a person or a social act is put on display. Still the movie does not insult these acts or label these acts neither moral nor immoral. People with conservative worldviews or moral values might find some parts repulsive. While more liberal audience can empathize. Thus makes the movie even more appealing. It is the type of the movie where everyone can find something to discuss on their terms of perception of the world.Also there are scenes that are referencing literature and artwork which are in my opinion are more like bonuses rather than adding the narrative.The problems with the movie in my opinion is the unnecessary anticlimactic parts that ruin the pace maybe deliberately but not for the positive. The depression aspect may have been reflected differently. It feels some parts are disconnected and may it be the filmmakers intent this creates boredom rather than the expression of depression or anxiety.The film demands quite a lot from the audience and the pauses might be for the purpose of giving time to the audience. But some references are only apparent to an informed audience. In my opinion biblical references could either have been left out or expressed more understandably.Some of the vagueness in the movie also makes me question the courage of the director. It is as if some points were not expressed as strongly as it could have been. To briefly summarize this movie is about depression and anxiety but may it be because of a very a specific case or that I couldn't empathize completely due to the blanks in the narrative.Some people resemble the movie to a symphony and I agree with the analogy. It is like a partly beautiful but not completely satisfying symphony.