jghbrown I seldom have watched a movie where I had so little sympathy for the characters in it. Justine, in particular, struck me as being thoroughly selfish and objectionable. Whatever internal pain she feels, she doesn't hesitate to take it out on those around her, including her (favourite?) horse. It seems she'll shag anyone, even on her wedding night. Yet, this apparently is all OK because she's depressed. Sorry, no...don't agree. In my view it's partly because people such as herself get given so much consideration (as from her feeble, long-suffering sister Claire) that they behave the way they do. They never have to face up to their own responsibilities. She would have got little sympathy from me, and had I witnessed her cruelty to her horse I might have been tempted to take that whip to her own over-indulged behind.

aarosedi 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.

nayanarenu What drew me to Melancholia were the stunning visuals but what kept me on what the wedding sequence. The dysfunctional dynamics of the key actors created a taut and highly tense ambiance that made me anticipate every next frame holding my breath. Unlike other movies, the impending doom of earth does not consume the characters from the onset and does not create cliché scenes. It was fascinating to see Melancholia grow from a speech of amusement and a conversation in passing to an eventuality that consumes their whole lives, much like how the planet grew in size as the day went by. The end of day scenes is unlike any I have seen before. Watch it if only for the visuals.

sp_cooper-40341 The first time I only caught the end of the film and was mesmerised.Watched in full the next time, was confused and thought maybe pretentious, but thought there may be more.Just watched for the fourth time and realised just how beautiful this film is.The direction and cinematography is perfect and Charlotte Gainsbourg superb as the angst ridden sister, mother and wife.There are few films like this you want to watch again and again.