Melancholia Review

Von Trier opens with eight minutes of slow-motion tableaux that give away the ending, a rogue planet swallowing the earth, then spends two hours proving that knowing does not help. The structure splits cleanly: a wedding reception curdling across one night, then the aftermath at the same estate as the sky changes. Kirsten Dunst plays Justine's depression without any of the usual film shorthand, alternating a sociability she can switch on with a leaden collapse that leaves her physically unable to lift a spoon, and the performance is unsparing about how tedious the condition is for everyone around it.

Charlotte Gainsbourg takes the second half as the sister who functions until functioning stops helping. Manuel Alberto Claro shoots the estate handheld in available light, so the composed opening images sit against the rest like a memory of order. The thesis, that a depressive is better prepared for the end of the world than the rational people, gets stated a shade too plainly near the end. But the last shot, three people in a stick shelter awaiting impact, is among the decade's most frightening images.