I admired Breaking the Waves, but I was also so traumatized by the film that I’ve never quite been able to make myself watch it a second time. I’m into the envelope-pushing ideals of the Dogma 95 manifesto. I like to give renegade filmmakers a chance.
But, yikes, there are limits to my ability to engage.
Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg give outstanding performances (among others in a star-studded cast) as sisters with complicated pasts who watch and wait for the end of the world.
If the title didn’t give you a clue that this film would be a downer, you were wearing blinders.
Lars von Trier has a hard vision, a nihilistic view, really. I would not be the first person to call him a misanthrope. In his story about the end of the world, there is nothing to grieve because humanity doesn’t seem worth saving.
The film is worth watching because of the performances and the singularity of von Trier’s vision, but it may only be worth watching for cinephiles who need to see Melancholia because it is part of a larger conversation about film.
