"You can skate across the polished surface in this film. The style is polished, but underneath the smooth surface, there's content. And to get to that, you need to look beyond the polish. But the worst thing to happen was when they said at Nordisk Film: There are some beautiful images,”
This film has beauty, and it is seductive. Images of the landscape, the castle, the wedding reception, and of Kirsten Dunst can draw us in. Von Trier admits the finished picture had a "plastic" quality that nearly turned his own stomach against it. The filmmaker's creation has almost bested him. And moreso it may his audiences. Search the online reviews; few can describe what this movie is about other than the obvious, superficial elements.
On that superficial level, I have to say the film disappoints. There are no plot twists. There is no escape from the inevitable. There is only a witness of how various characters respond to an impending crash of planets.
There is, however, a deeper statement, reflected in the transformation of Dunst's character Justine: from helpless, depressed, and crushed by the weight of everyday life - to clear, direct, purposeful and productive - all as the crisis draws nearer. It is no coincidence that the character in whom this transformation takes place is a survivor of sexual abuse.
I expect most reviews will miss this background of Justine's character, but the evidence is all there, subtly and unmistakably. The father who is obsessed with women he jokingly names "Betty" - bringing two of them to the wedding - which we later learn is his pet-name for his daughter. The mother who openly scorns the marriage ceremony, who later bitterly explains, "I wasn't there when that man had a crack at her body, I wasn't there for her first sexual experience, why should I be there for this stupid ritual." And, finally, Justine's growing panic as her new husband undresses to consummate their union, requesting a moment to herself - during which she impulsively and violently rapes an innocuous wedding guest in the sand trap on the golf course. Justine has transferred forward the violence done to her, engaging in anonymous sex, often the only kind of sexuality with which the child victim of sexual abuse can identify.
Justine's history as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse - which is so subtly told it will be lost on most audiences, I'm afraid - provides a crucial backdrop for her prevalent present features: her crippling depression and her strange clarity and strength as the end of the world nears.
Part I, "Justine," shows Justine's debilitating mental illness: the wedding is admittedly a performance, a last-ditch effort to revive her spirits. Yet it is a failure, she cannot live on her own and ends up back at the castle estate on which her sister's family lives. She spends days in bed and needs help being lifted physically to the dinner table or the bath. She is a woman who cannot summon the energy to participate in everyday life on the same terms as others.
There is a thread connecting the instances of Justine's energy, and this is part of the genius of von Trier's script: Justine comes alive only at opportunities to engage with truth. She actively seeks out her mother to reveal her feelings of confusion and fear, only to be smote by her mother's jealous bitterness. Justine shows surprising initiative at chasing down her father and arranging him a room to stay the night, because she needs to speak with him about "something important." The incestuous father, however, sensing the possible encounter with the truth of his past transgressions, finds the excuse to flee from the confrontation. The husband of her dreams, while making dull attempts at kindness in providing a fantasy life for her, cannot himself deal with the truth of her depression, but escapes into the bottle of Hennessy and by burying his face in her breasts, hungry for sex. When Justine leaves her husband in his state of excitement, she is an abuse victim not just fleeing from stigmatized sex, but also intolerant of her partner's inability to face her truth.
As this pattern repeats in part II, it becomes evident that Justine's depression is not an individualized disease (as our medical model would have it), but rather that she is sapped of life as her key connections stake out their commitments to flee from the truth. As the collision with the planet Melancholia becomes more inevitable, the other adults flee - one through suicide, and the other into flailing fantasy and despair. Meanwhile, the character Justine answers a nighttime muse to bathe nude and touch herself in the light of the approaching planet Melancholia, symbolically drinking in the truth about her melancholy, which all the functioning world would deny her.
Robbed of the stability that would have come from healthy boundaries being respected in her upbringing, Justine, like all abuse survivors, at a young age had her world turned upside down. While she is incapable of functioning in a functioning world, she conversely possesses the unique ability to draw strength from chaos - for in the chaos, there is truth. As Justine says, "life is evil;" the functioning world, like her father, would hide its chaotic violence and put on pretenses (such as the wedding) for their own benefit. Yet, they crumble or flee when the truth eclipses their pretense. Justine, however, finally has her nourishment: the unmistakeable approach of the destruction she has always known was there. While her nephew's parents have abandoned him, she relates to him and steps up to show him the way through chaos: with dignity, they prepare, join together, and close their eyes to meditate while their destruction rips through them. Von Trier explains:
"We are [alone]. But no one wants to realize it. They keep wanting to push limits and fly wherever,” he laughs. “Forget it! Look inward.”
As eloquently as Pema Chodron might put it, Lars von Trier shows that truth cannot be met by our common, cowardly impulses toward escape. And in facing the truth, the struggles that trauma survivors have gone through to grapple with their own worldly handicaps will actually serve them well. Jesus did say, "the last will be first."
Regardless of whether the world ends suddenly with planets colliding, or whether melancholy gradually eclipses us as our trusted sources of stability in life are compromised, Melancholia asks us to consider how we will face truth. Will we plan, like Claire, to put on Beethoven's 9th, drink good wine, and try to make it "nice"? Or, like Justine, will we have the courage to meet truth with truth, call those sorts of plans "shit," and prepare in all seriousness as best we are able?
Anyone commenting on or reading about von Trier's film has felt the truth of the film resonating within them. Are we content to comment on the superficial, plastic elements of the film, or will we try to probe deeper for the source of this truth within us? Will we allow ourselves to be seduced, like an abuser, into thinking that beauty is all there is to be had - or will we force ourselves to keep asking questions, until the reality of the destruction becomes something we accept?
If you have been abused, you have in your experience an advantage in answering this for yourself.
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