Melancholia
What kind of person
goes to the cinema? To sit in a dark
room on a sunny day, maybe, and have their head filled with illusion and
nonsense. Plato’s allegory of the cave springs to mind, the stupid cavedwellers
who watched the shadows on the wall. Maybe these people have underactive
imaginations they supplement with the cinematic images. Or overactive
imaginations, so they need the stimulation they receive from the images like a
steam train needs fuel, or a stomach needs food. These people have minds that,
like nature, it is said, abhor a vacuum.
To sit in a dark room
is to behave like a person “depressed”. I’m not sure if this term is covalent
with “melancholia” but I know that the root cause of these conditions,
generally speaking, are mysterious in a way that physical afflictions, let’s
say an ingrown toenail, are not. That being said, melancholic, gloomy, call it
what you will, temperaments are familiar to us, whether it’s Eeyore in
Winnie-the-Pooh or Cassandra in mythology.
There are traces of the Cassandra character in Melancholia’s Justine (Kirsten Dunst).
This “woman who has everything” for some reason (later explained) has visions
that look like they were painted by Magritte in a bad mood. On occasion her own
mood deteriorates so profoundly that she loses the will to move. On one level,
it seems clear that the filmmakers are highlighting the utter capriciousness of
“melancholia”. And, just as we all know someone for whom the glass is always
half empty, we all are aware of how such individuals tend to come into their
own when the worst actually does happen. The effect that is commonly known as “being
right”. Happily, there are intimations of this phenomenon in the subtext of Melancholia.
Speaking of visions brings us back to the cinematic
experience. There are some amazing representations of cataclysm in this movie.
These are accompanied with sub-bass rumbles that tickle your amygdala. Enjoy. I have a feeling you will.