Lars von Trier's 'Melancholia' out tomorrow

Emerging from the publicity nightmare, or possibly triumph (we’re referring to the speech at Cannes), showman and shock artist Lars Von Trier’s latest film to hit cinemas is Melancholia, “a beautiful movie about the end of the world”. Starring Kirsten Dunst (who won Best Actor at Cannes for her superb performance) and Charlotte Gainsbourg, who starred in Trier’s last film Anti-Christ, the film promises a torturous study of emotional dire straits. In a long line of films dedicated to depression, his own being the precursor and inspiration for the chronicles, Trier treads familiar ground with Melancholia. The drama centres around a disaster wedding reception, abandoned when Justine (Dunst) and her sister Claire (Gainsbourg) turn manic depressive and obsess about a possible pending apocalypse. Their breakdown is heightened by a grand Wagnerian soundtrack, which weighs on the action, pulling the audience to their own sense of inescapable doom. The film split the audience at Cannes, with Time Out describing it as like ‘wading through glue’. (FT)
www.melancholiathemovie.com/