Directed by Lars Von Trier. Starring Kirsten Dunst, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Alexander Skarsgård, Brady Corbet, Cameron Spurr, Charlotte Rampling
And you thought the hot ticket was The Tree of Life. The first press screening of Lars Von Trier's latest conundrum packed the massive Lumiére Theatre to the rafters. By the time this writer arrived, he found himself relegated to a seat seven rows below Uranus. The unveiling of Terrence Malick's film seemed, in comparison, like an intimate tea party.
Yes, Lars Von Trier truly is Cannes's malign patron saint. As it happens, The Tree of Lifeand Melancholiacome across a little like complementary companion pieces. The American film incorporates the birth of the planet into an intimate domestic drama. Von Trier's characteristically infuriating head-wrecker combines family squabbles with a graceful depiction of the planet's violent destruction. Melancholiais a great deal less provocative than Antichrist– Lars's last entry in the main competition (then again, how could it not be?) – but its insidious, depressive energy really gets under the skin and batters away at the psyche. As is always the case with this director, expect both raves and brickbats.
The opening act, which appears to nod towards fellow Dane Thomas Vinterberg's Festen, takes place at the wedding of an advertising executive and her curiously indistinct boyfriend. A furrowed Kirsten Dunst is surprisingly effective as the troubled heroine. Over a lengthy, talky preamble, she falls out badly with her boss (Stellan Skarsgård), tries the patience of her brother-in-law (Kiefer Sutherland) and draws weary sighs from her long-suffering sister (Charlotte Gainsbourg). As expected, the action is shot with mobile cameras in those shades of fag-ash grey and watered-down blue. The setting is also familiar: a version of America that looks suspiciously like northern Europe. While all this low-key angst is playing itself out, some massive mobile planet – hidden behind the sun until recently – is heading towards Earth.
Mainstream scientists are convinced that the body will skirt harmlessly by, but an impressive opening sequence, scored to Wagner's Tristan and Isolde, makes the audience aware that apocalypse is on the way. Von Trier has always combined wilful obscurity with an immature tendency towards thumpingly explicit metaphors. Much of the film features slightly puzzling conversations that fail to push the story forward. His teenage side comes through in the naming of the threatening heavenly body. It is called Melancholiaand you don't need a degree in semiotics to deduce that its lurking presence stands in for the depression that is debilitating Dunst's character (and that struck the director a few years back).
In the second half, the threat of obliteration comes to the forefront.
Despite the lingering hint of adolescent angst, the picture picks up genuine menace as the killer planet begins looming over the horizon. The end result is oppressive, alienating and disorientating. All of which is surely intended. Raise a cheer for Cannes’s rogue-in-chief.
