今年戛納影展參賽片的實(shí)力和陣容是歷年少見的，好多位重量級(jí)大導(dǎo)演都拿出作品參展，包括比利時(shí)的達(dá)頓兄弟、土耳其的奴力-比格-錫蘭、丹麥的拉斯-馮-提爾、美國的泰倫斯-馬利克和伍迪-艾倫、西班牙的佩德羅-阿莫多瓦、以及韓國的金基德。然而這場盛宴最終卻因?yàn)榈湆?dǎo)演拉斯馮提爾一席關(guān)于“我同情希特勒，我是納粹”的蠢話，而被搞得烏煙瘴氣，不僅拉斯馮提爾本人難堪地被趕出戛納影展，他的作品《驚悚末日》也被某些國家列為“不受歡迎”。

拉斯馮提爾是丹麥最著名的導(dǎo)演，雖然有張愛亂說話的大嘴巴，但他的作品確實(shí)非常出色，素來以強(qiáng)烈的個(gè)人風(fēng)格和“驚世駭俗”著稱。拉斯馮提爾偏好描繪極端的心理狀態(tài)，包括喪偶、喪子、或即將失明的人所面對的絕望、瘋狂、癡迷、或自棄的情緒。拉斯馮提爾擅長用手持?jǐn)z影、長時(shí)間特寫鏡頭、外加自然光線捕捉影片人物的痛苦感受。每當(dāng)影片人物遭受意外打擊或傷害時(shí)，拉斯馮提爾總不急著揭露打擊或傷害的真相，而是透過慢悠悠的特寫鏡頭，逼著觀眾“細(xì)細(xì)咀嚼”人物的表情變化，感染當(dāng)事人的痛苦情緒或命懸一線的緊張氛圍。

這種“心理虐待”的風(fēng)格雖然讓很多觀眾“不喜歡”拉斯馮提爾的作品，不過很少觀眾會(huì)對他的作品說“沒感覺”。除此之外，這種用放大鏡式手法仔細(xì)觀察人物心理和情緒的個(gè)人風(fēng)格，也讓演出拉斯馮提爾作品的演員特別容易捧得演技獎(jiǎng)項(xiàng)，例如2000年的《黑暗中的舞者》、2009年的《反基督》、和2011年的《驚悚末日》便先后捧出三個(gè)戛納影展影后，她們分別是冰島的比-約克、法國的夏綠蒂-甘博斯和美國的克麗絲-鄧斯特。

拉斯馮提爾在2009年推出的《反基督》，可說驚世駭俗到了極致，也因此大家對于他的新作《驚悚末日》不免充滿好奇。平心而論，相比于《反基督》，《驚悚末日》可用“正常”兩個(gè)字來形容，雖然這部作品仍舊承襲拉斯馮提爾一貫的風(fēng)格，對極端情況下的心理狀態(tài)進(jìn)行剖析和放大，但當(dāng)中沒有任何血腥之處，色調(diào)也明亮許多?！扼@悚末日》的原文片名是“Melancholia”，意指“憂郁癥”，這部電影被分成前后兩個(gè)部分，而影片原名和中文譯名分別指出這兩個(gè)部分的主題：憂郁癥與世界末日。

■乍看之下，憂郁癥和世界末日是兩件不相關(guān)的事情，但拉斯馮提爾卻透過世界末日所帶來的絕望與毀滅情緒，來捕捉重度憂郁癥患者不為一般人所理解的心理感受?！扼@悚末日》的第一部分叫做“賈絲汀”，第二部分叫做“克萊爾”，其中賈絲汀和克萊爾是一對姐妹，第一部分講述的是賈絲汀婚禮上的事情，第二部分則講述克萊爾在世界末日來臨時(shí)的反應(yīng)。

【賈絲汀】
這一天是賈絲汀結(jié)婚的日子，賈絲汀的姐姐和姐夫聯(lián)手為她舉辦了一場極盡奢華之能事的盛大婚禮，賈絲汀那對已經(jīng)離異的父母、上司、以及眾多親朋友好都來參加。這本該是賈絲汀最幸福快樂的一刻，但嚴(yán)重的憂郁癥卻困擾著她，讓她做出種種令人費(fèi)解的舉動(dòng)，最終毀了這場婚禮和自己的婚姻。

賈絲汀的父親是個(gè)花花公子，老是四處勾搭女人。賈絲汀的母親是個(gè)反對婚姻、刻薄嚴(yán)厲的女人。賈絲汀的上司則是個(gè)自私無情、只想著工作的人。這三個(gè)人即使在賈絲汀的婚禮上，也是依然固我地展現(xiàn)自己的丑陋性格。賈絲汀的姐姐一手操辦這場婚禮，雖然看出妹妹的憂郁癥已經(jīng)發(fā)作，還是試著讓婚禮順利進(jìn)行。賈絲汀的姐夫極其富有，雖然內(nèi)心里很討厭妻子的家人，但為了妻子，仍舊掏出大筆金錢舉辦這場風(fēng)光的婚禮，他唯一的要求是賈絲汀要心存感激并因此開開心心。至于賈絲汀的新婚丈夫則沉浸在幸福里，雖然察覺賈絲汀的狀況有些奇怪，但完全不知道緣由、更不知道如何應(yīng)對。

賈絲汀的婚禮在一開場就不是很順利，先是新人的禮車被困在路上，讓賓客們苦等了兩個(gè)多小時(shí)，之后是父母在婚宴上公開地惡言相向。隨著這些事情發(fā)生，賈絲汀的情緒也從狂喜慢慢變成低落，各種奇怪的舉動(dòng)也一一浮現(xiàn)。她先是獨(dú)自跑到草坪上晃蕩、穿著婚紗在地上尿尿，又在大家等待新娘切蛋糕時(shí)躲在房間泡澡，后來還將新婚丈夫一個(gè)人留在房間、自己跑到外面和公司新來的員工做愛。在這過程中，賈絲汀的姐姐克萊爾一直試著讓妹妹振作，也看得出來賈絲汀也有努力要維持清醒和正常，她試著找父親、母親等人談話，但大家都忙著自己的事情，沒空或不愿意與她一起坐下來。終于，所有人都在婚禮結(jié)束后離去，包括賈絲汀的新婚丈夫。

【克萊爾】
在婚禮過后，賈絲汀的狀況非常糟糕，于是克萊爾將她留在家中照顧，但克萊爾自己的心情也非常惡劣?？茖W(xué)家宣布即將有一個(gè)名為“郁星”（Melancholia）的彗星會(huì)從地球旁邊穿過去。盡管科學(xué)家認(rèn)為“郁星”極不可能撞上地球，但是克萊爾就是不放心，始終擔(dān)憂著世界末日就要到來，為此她還偷偷買了用以自殺的藥。

克萊爾的丈夫和兒子對郁星穿過地球這個(gè)大事倒是頗感興奮，還在院子里架設(shè)望遠(yuǎn)鏡觀察。不過克萊爾的丈夫雖然一再安慰妻子無需擔(dān)憂，但他私下還是準(zhǔn)備許多燃料和干糧以備不時(shí)之需。至于賈絲汀，她的狀況剛開始還是很不好，不斷陷于昏睡、不吃不喝。但她發(fā)現(xiàn)姐姐和外甥為郁星的到來而憂慮時(shí)，竟然有些恢復(fù)正常，開始能起身吃東西、甚至騎馬。她說她一點(diǎn)都不怕世界末日，甚至說自己有特殊的能力，能“知道”一些事情，諸如郁星一定會(huì)撞上地球。

郁星終于如期而來，在越來越接近地球后便逐漸遠(yuǎn)離。克萊爾和丈夫都松了一口氣，當(dāng)丈夫舉起酒杯祝賀生命時(shí)，克萊爾才知道丈夫說不擔(dān)心其實(shí)是假的。然而，出乎意料的事情發(fā)生了，本該漸次遠(yuǎn)離的郁星竟然轉(zhuǎn)向、正面朝著地球而來?？巳R爾發(fā)現(xiàn)這個(gè)事實(shí)的時(shí)候，丈夫已經(jīng)趁著自己睡著時(shí)吃藥自殺?？巳R爾雖然害怕極了，她是還盡可能地在兒子面前裝作鎮(zhèn)定，帶著兒子往外逃跑。但逃到別墅聯(lián)外的小橋那里時(shí)，卻怎么樣也過不去，她只好帶著兒子又轉(zhuǎn)回頭。

唯一保持冷靜的是賈絲汀，她靜靜地看者克萊爾的慌亂無措、嘲弄克萊爾關(guān)于喝紅酒靜待最后一刻來臨的荒謬提議，她語帶安慰地帶恐懼的外甥去林子里劈砍樹枝、然后在院子里搭起一個(gè)“神奇棚”。之后三人便一起鉆進(jìn)這個(gè)神奇棚，彼此緊握著手，直到郁星撞毀地球。

■就切入議題的方式和鋪陳的架構(gòu)來說，《驚悚末日》很容易讓人聯(lián)想到拿下本屆戛納影展金棕櫚獎(jiǎng)的《生命之樹》，兩者都是以一實(shí)一虛的方式來捕捉抽象的概念和感覺?！渡畼洹肥且詠硎赖南Ｍ麃砗嫱猩退劳龅囊饬x，《驚悚末日》則是以末日的絕望來呈現(xiàn)毀滅和死亡的痛苦。在《驚悚末日》的第一部分中，呈現(xiàn)出賈絲汀這個(gè)重度憂郁癥患者的行為舉止，但卻留下對內(nèi)心狀態(tài)的空白。但在第二部分里頭，呈現(xiàn)的是克萊爾一家人面對世界末日時(shí)的情緒，同時(shí)也補(bǔ)充了前一部分里的空白。

當(dāng)郁星將從地球旁邊穿過的消息傳來時(shí)，克萊爾就是沒辦法不去想到最糟糕的狀況，她的丈夫雖然理性許多，但內(nèi)心仍舊不免會(huì)有些負(fù)面的想法。然而當(dāng)最糟糕的情況真的發(fā)生、當(dāng)所有人都“知道”世界末日降臨時(shí)，克萊爾的丈夫完全承受不了打擊和恐懼，立即便選擇自我了斷。至于克萊爾，她雖然試著堅(jiān)強(qiáng)、試著尋找出路，但終究還是陷入無路可走、無計(jì)可施的境地，于是情緒徹底崩潰，各種荒誕的想法、難以理解的行為也紛紛出現(xiàn)。

這樣的心理狀態(tài)和行為變化其實(shí)便是賈絲汀在婚禮上的狀態(tài)。一個(gè)重度憂郁癥患者常常不能自己地去想象最糟糕的情況，而這種想象其糟糕的程度和確定的程度，就如同克萊爾所面對的世界末日，給人帶來最深切的悲傷和恐懼。處在這種狀況下，要不是如同賈絲汀的姐夫那般以自殺的方式尋求解脫，便是如同克萊爾那樣試著堅(jiān)強(qiáng)并尋找出路。但是當(dāng)世界末日來臨時(shí)哪里有出路？這便是重度憂郁癥患者常常感受到的絕望與無助，也因此患者常常會(huì)出現(xiàn)情緒崩潰的情況、甚至做出各種不可理喻、難以理解的事情。

在人處于徹底絕望的狀況下時(shí)，大多都希望有所愛之人陪伴在身邊，緊握住自己的手、分擔(dān)自己的恐懼，因此在第一部分時(shí)，賈絲汀一直試著請求家人陪伴她，在第二部分時(shí)，她搭建所謂的神奇棚，讓家人一同緊握住手，為的不是尋找得救的方法，而是試著在最后的一刻感受到愛與溫暖，就像她對這個(gè)神奇棚的評(píng)語：你還能期望什么？

《驚悚末日》雖然是由兩個(gè)部分構(gòu)成，但在影片最開頭還有一段八分鐘的片段，用超慢速度和超現(xiàn)實(shí)手法呈現(xiàn)雙腳陷于沙地、地球遭到星體撞擊、手指放電等畫面，仿佛是超現(xiàn)實(shí)畫家筆下的絕望與毀滅感受。而這段畫面又輔以華格納以“愛與死”為主題的歌劇《崔斯坦和伊索格》，更凸顯出來拉斯馮提爾對憂郁癥和世界末日的理解與詮釋：為什么會(huì)發(fā)生這事一點(diǎn)都不重要，重要的是，所帶來的絕望讓人痛苦到活不下去，當(dāng)中那種無路可逃、絕無希望的毀滅之感還讓人理智盡失、丑態(tài)盡顯。在此之中，愛與溫暖是唯一能緩解的止痛劑，但也只是止痛劑。

平心而論，重度憂郁癥患者的內(nèi)心感受很難真實(shí)地傳遞給一般人，但《驚悚末日》透過世界末日降臨時(shí)的感受來迫近憂郁癥患者的心理，讓人深刻地感受患者們的絕望和痛苦。而借由《驚悚末日》這部作品，拉斯馮提爾更證明自己即使不用病態(tài)和陰暗的手法，也可以捕捉住人們在極端情況下的心理狀態(tài)。他雖然是個(gè)很蠢的受訪者，但無疑是個(gè)一流的導(dǎo)演。

拉斯馮提爾自稱是世界上最好的導(dǎo)演。作為道格瑪95早期的代表人物，其作品一直關(guān)懷人物抑郁的內(nèi)心和殘酷的命運(yùn)。馮提爾曾經(jīng)是各大電影節(jié)的寵兒，直至他兩年前備受爭議的作品《反基督者》。 新片《憂郁癥》看似科幻驚悚片，其實(shí)跟《反基督者》一樣，仍然關(guān)注的是心里災(zāi)難。
　　《憂郁癥》分為兩個(gè)大的部分。第一部分里，妹妹賈斯汀是一個(gè)意圖借結(jié)婚來正常自己生活的女人。她竭盡全力在婚禮上扮演符合人們期待的自己——甜美幸福的新娘，卻終究被情緒的洪流擊垮，忽視父母的戰(zhàn)爭，未婚夫的失落，姐姐姐夫的希冀。自私地做自己。而第二部分，小行星對地球的接近，肉眼可見，且速度越來越快，對姐姐克萊爾的生活造成毀滅性的影響，巨大的恐懼導(dǎo)致她精神和行為都漸漸失常。面對死亡反倒是賈斯汀表現(xiàn)鎮(zhèn)定，與她之前所表現(xiàn)出的堅(jiān)定獨(dú)立倒是相互應(yīng)和。最終姐妹倆跟克萊爾的兒子三人坐在象征性的“保護(hù)棚”里迎接命運(yùn)。
　　影片的序曲，就是一個(gè)大膽的嘗試。用唯美圣潔的升格畫面，且之間無關(guān)聯(lián)可尋，花了約10分鐘的時(shí)間，把故事“展現(xiàn)”了一遍，好像看圖說話一樣。古典油畫般的意向性畫面，夸張刺耳的背景樂，令這個(gè)序曲充滿意識(shí)的張力和給人以聯(lián)想的空間。關(guān)于結(jié)局的前置，導(dǎo)演解釋為，很多電影其實(shí)我們在看之前已經(jīng)能知道結(jié)局了，比如007系列，誰都知道結(jié)局一定是007會(huì)搞定生還，但大家還是會(huì)去看，想看事情將如何發(fā)展，人跟人之間會(huì)發(fā)生什么。事實(shí)上，這個(gè)序曲倒是沒有削弱觀眾看下去的興趣，只是影片后兩個(gè)部分尤其是第二個(gè)部分，張力相對較弱，確實(shí)不如序曲那么精彩，有點(diǎn)虎頭蛇尾，十分可惜。
　　而關(guān)于“憂郁癥”的主題，一部分來自導(dǎo)演自身的經(jīng)歷，一部分仍然跟他過去作品中的主要人物的情緒類似。很多人看完影片后認(rèn)為，這是一部釋放情緒之作。大概因?yàn)?，以前他作品中的許多人物，總是十分壓抑自己的情緒，最后借由外界力量的推動(dòng)爆發(fā)。而這部電影中的賈斯汀，對自己放任自由，不再受超我束縛。外界也沒有任何力量能壓迫她，連世界毀滅都不能。簡直是超乎尋常強(qiáng)大的心靈。用劇中賈斯汀老板扮演者，斯特蘭斯卡斯加德的話來說，這是一部導(dǎo)演不控制任何東西的電影。而拉斯馮提爾自己也表示，拍這部電影的時(shí)候感覺很好，不像拍《反基督者》那時(shí)備受折磨。像習(xí)武之人，一日打通任督二脈，忽而脈絡(luò)疏通，功夫猛進(jìn)。且不說馮提爾是不是最好的導(dǎo)演，相信算是最好的之一，如果他能通過拍攝電影，消減自己內(nèi)心的災(zāi)難；又能夠通過釋放自己的心靈，拓展創(chuàng)作的意境，那不論對他自己還是對影迷們，都將意義非凡。
　　值得一提的是夏洛特甘斯布在片中有非同尋常之鮮明貼切的表演。兩年前她曾憑借主演《反基督者》獲得戛納電影節(jié)最佳女主角的稱號(hào)。兩年后她在馮提爾的調(diào)度下又成功塑造出一個(gè)被瘋狂與恐慌兩種情緒同時(shí)主宰的女人。表演深切自然，情緒由內(nèi)至外，跟《反基督者》中的妻子有某種相似，又截然不同，很有再度角金的實(shí)力。

有圖的版本（沒圖還介紹個(gè)毛）... ...

http://www.douban.com/note/218806198/

首先是片頭第二個(gè)鏡頭出現(xiàn)的畫作《雪中獵手》

The Hunters in the Snow 雪中獵手 Artist ：Pieter Brueghel the Elder Year ：1565

這幅是老布魯蓋爾的畫作，關(guān)于老布魯蓋爾的一些情況可以參見由另外一部《磨坊與十字架》引申出來的介紹：

http://www.douban.com/note/212570175/

這幅畫作于1565年，也另名為獵手歸來。是老布魯蓋爾廣為稱道的一副板上油畫，亦被認(rèn)為是北方文藝復(fù)興運(yùn)動(dòng)的代表作之一。

畫面表現(xiàn)了在獵狗陪伴下的獵手打獵歸來的場景。但顯而易見的是這次圍獵并不太成功，獵人們拖著沉重疲倦的步伐，狗兒們看起來都悲慘而垂頭喪氣，只有一名獵人扛著他瘦弱不堪的狐貍尸體，顯現(xiàn)出他們窘迫的處境。整幅畫面處理得十分冷靜，籠罩在一片冰涼而陰霾的天氣之下。色調(diào)灰白，樹木幾乎片葉不存。在山腳下的山谷中，一個(gè)輪子結(jié)冰的水車被凍住了，冰封的山尖看起來十分遙遠(yuǎn)。在凍住的湖面上還有一些像剪影一般的人。

1560年正處在荷蘭宗教改革的時(shí)代，布魯蓋爾（以及他老板）或許試圖描繪一種他們希冀的，想要的農(nóng)村景象。

這幅畫并不是第一次在電影中出現(xiàn)，俄羅斯導(dǎo)演安德烈.塔可夫斯基就在他的影片飛向太空/索拉斯星/Solaris(1972) 和鏡子/The Mirror(1974)中也用到過這幅畫。

然后Justin在房間里的場景，她看到書架上攤開的都是現(xiàn)代主義畫作，幾乎全是冰冷的幾何抽象以及構(gòu)成主義。于是重新翻開幾本書蓋了上去，第一幅畫仍然是布魯蓋爾的雪中獵手。之后幾幅能夠看清的有下面這兩幅，出自同一位英國畫家約翰.埃弗雷特.米雷斯爵士：

非常熟悉的奧菲利婭/Ophelia, 作于1851年左右的板上油畫，畫的是哈姆雷特的情人墜亡在水中的場景。這幅畫現(xiàn)藏于英國泰特美術(shù)館，市值估計(jì)在3千萬英鎊... ...

這幅畫后來廣泛地影響了很多其他藝術(shù)，電影和攝影。Laurence Olivier的電影哈姆雷特/Hamlet(1948)中奧菲利婭之死場景便基于此畫。本片片首Kirsten Dunst漂浮在水上的畫面也毫無疑問來源于此。

據(jù)說John Everett Millais都是習(xí)慣先畫場景，再把人物畫上去。當(dāng)時(shí)房間的取暖條件大概不太好，他讓模特兒在冰冷的浴缸里泡了若干小時(shí)使得可憐的姑娘幾乎得肺炎死掉，姑娘的父親差點(diǎn)和他打官司...

另外一副：守護(hù)林人的女兒 The Woodman's Daughter 1851

顯然這本畫冊這一頁介紹的是英國的前拉斐爾派（The Pre-Raphaelite）。

那么之后是大名鼎鼎地卡拉瓦喬繪制的手提歌利亞頭的大衛(wèi)。關(guān)于這幅畫評(píng)議很多，說的是舊約中講述的猶太人的王大衛(wèi)用石子擊殺巨人歌利亞的故事。米開朗基羅的雕塑大衛(wèi)表現(xiàn)的也是這位王在擊殺前的瞬間。

據(jù)說這幅畫中的頭顱就是卡拉瓦喬畫家本人，我好懶，有時(shí)間再慢慢寫。有興趣的人可以去找BBC的紀(jì)錄片《藝術(shù)的故事》中關(guān)于卡拉瓦喬的那一集，有比較有趣和詳細(xì)的解釋。

剩下的幾幅都一閃而過看不清楚，最后姐姐Claire走進(jìn)同一間房找藥片的時(shí)候，似乎還掃到了克里姆特的吻。這幅是維也納分離派時(shí)期的作品，金光閃閃，華麗異常，十分受廣大人民喜愛。

畫基本上就是這些。此外詢問朋友后得知，片中沒完沒了我痛苦啊我痛苦世界上我最痛苦用到的曲子是瓦格納的歌劇《特里斯坦與伊索爾德》序曲?？磦€(gè)歐洲導(dǎo)演的失心瘋片兒容易么，需要全面復(fù)習(xí)西方藝術(shù)音樂史，太有文化有時(shí)候往往反而是種殘障，思考過多生命力衰竭，你不抑郁誰抑郁呢。

我喜歡這種女主角

以為你只有臉蛋吧

人家可以只對著臉拍三十分鐘你也從中讀得懂劇情

以為你只有演技吧

人家也可以只對著胸拍三十分鐘你也得老實(shí)承認(rèn)各種角度具美

老實(shí)說

我沒看出justin一開始就是抑郁癥

在我們的四處周圍，成長履歷

這樣的

慫爸惡媽

變臉王老板，

自以為是菜鳥，

神經(jīng)病文藝女青年（還是廣告女青年，太tmd的exactly了?。。。?br>
恐婚，

家庭不和，

在這個(gè)社會(huì)，也太正常了吧？

請導(dǎo)演可以落力將“不正常”再“不正?！币稽c(diǎn)讓“正?！钡奈覀冎馈安徽！卑桑?br>----------------------------------------------------------------------

所以正常的人

已經(jīng)小強(qiáng)到只會(huì)到地球毀滅才崩潰

而抑郁癥會(huì)因?yàn)?br>
與其他人不一樣，

敢于說出真相，

或者擁有讓人嫉妒的才華卻不乖乖聽話等

奔潰？

得出這樣的結(jié)論讓我失落不已

看片之前

我覺得自己開始抑郁

并企圖通過看片完成深惡痛疾抑郁，達(dá)成擺脫抑郁的結(jié)果

但當(dāng)我看到

影片全程

抑郁者

其實(shí)

平靜喜悅，

忠于自我

身與心可坦白于天地之間

而“正常人”卻恐懼不堪

逃避生命與責(zé)任




反正現(xiàn)在忠于自我如此困難，而地球毀滅如此簡單

還不如用抑郁癥拯救自己？

Lars von Trier’s Melancholia (2011) stages an interesting reversal of this classic formula of an object-Thing (an asteroid, alien) that serves as the enabling obstacle to the creation of the couple. At the film’s end, the Thing (a planet on a collision course with Earth) does not withdraw, as in Super 8; it hits the Earth, destroying all life, and the film is about the different ways the main characters deal with the impending catastrophe (with responses ranging from suicide to cynical acceptance). The planet is thus the Thing-das Ding at its purest, as Heidegger would have it: the Real Thing which dissolves any symbolic frame – we see it, it is our death, we cannot do anything. The film begins with an introductory sequence, shot in slow motion, involving the main characters and images from space, which introduces the visual motifs. A shot from the vantage point of space shows a giant planet approaching Earth; the two planets collide. The film continues in two parts, each named for one of two sisters, Justine and Claire.

In part one, ‘Justine’, a young couple, Justine and Michael, are at their wedding reception at the mansion of Justine’s sister, Claire, and her husband, John. The lavish reception lasts from dusk to dawn with eating, drinking, dancing and the usual family conflicts (Justine’s bitter mother makes sarcastic and insulting remarks, ultimately resulting in John attempting to throw her off his property; Justine’s boss follows her around, begging her to write a piece of advertising copy for him). Justine drifts away from the party and becomes increasingly distant; she has sex with a stranger on the lawn, and, at the end of the party, Michael leaves her.

In part two, ‘Claire’, the ill, depressed Justine comes to stay with Claire and John and their son, Leo. Although Justine is unable to carry out normal everyday activities like taking a bath or even eating, she gets better over time. During her stay, Melancholia, a massive blue telluric planet that had been hidden behind the sun, becomes visible in the sky as it approaches Earth. John, who is an amateur astronomer, is excited about the planet, and looks forward to the ‘fly-by’ expected by scientists, who have assured the public that Earth and Melancholia will pass each other without colliding. But Claire is getting fearful and believes the end of the world is imminent. On the internet, she finds a site describing the movements of Melancholia around Earth as a ‘dance of death’, in which the apparent passage of Melancholia past Earth initiates a slingshot orbit that will bring the planets into collision soon after. On the night of the fly-by, it seems that Melancholia will not hit Earth; however, after the fly-by, background birdsong abruptly ceases, and the next day Claire realizes that Melancholia is circling back and will collide with Earth after all. John, who also discovers that the end is near, commits suicide through a pill overdose. Claire becomes increasingly agitated, while Justine remains unperturbed by the impending doom: calm and silent, she accepts the coming event, claiming that she knows that life does not exist elsewhere in the universe. She comforts Leo by making a protective ‘magic cave’, a symbolic shelter of wooden sticks, on the mansion’s lawn. Justine, Claire and Leo enter the shelter as the planet approaches. Claire continues to remain agitated and fearful, while Justine and Leo stay calm and hold hands. The three are instantly incinerated as the collision occurs and destroys Earth.

This narrative is interspersed with numerous ingenious details. To calm Claire, John tells her to look at Melancholia through a circle of wire which just encompasses its circular shape in the sky, thus enframing it, and to repeat this 10 minutes later so she will see that the shape has become smaller, leaving gaps within the frame – a proof that Melancholia is moving away from the Earth. She does this, and grows jubilant when she sees a smaller shape. However, when she looks at Melancholia through the frame some hours later, she is terrified to see that the shape of the planet has now expanded well beyond the frame of the wire circle. This circle is the circle of fantasy enframing reality, and the shock arrives when the Thing breaks through and spills over into reality. There are also wonderful details of the disturbances that happen in nature as Melancholia approaches the Earth: insects, worms, roaches and other repellent forms of life usually hidden beneath the green grass come to the surface, rendering visible the dis-gusting crawling of life beneath the idyllic surface – the Real invading reality, ruining its image. (This is similar to David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, in which, in a famous shot after the father’s heart attack, the camera moves extremely close to the grass surface and then penetrates it, rendering visible the crawling of micro-life, the repelling Real beneath the idyllic suburban surface.)

The idea for Melancholia originated in a therapy session von Trier attended during treatment for depression: the psychiatrist told him that depressive people tend to act more calmly than others under extreme pressure or the threat of catastrophe – they already expect bad things to happen. This fact offers yet another example of the split between reality – the social universe of established customs and opinions in which we dwell – and the traumatic, meaningless brutality of the Real: in the film, John is a ‘realist’, fully immersed in ordinary reality, so when the co-ordinates of this reality dissolve, his entire world breaks down; Claire is an hysteric who starts to question everything in a panic, but nonetheless avoids complete psychotic breakdown; and the depressed Justine goes on as usual because she is already living in a melancholic withdrawal from reality.

The film deploys four subjective attitudes to-wards this ultimate Event (the planet-Thing hitting the Earth) as Lacan would understand them. John, the husband, is the embodiment of university knowledge, which falls apart in its en-counter with the Real; Leo, the son, is the cherubinic object-cause of desire for the other three; Claire is the hysterical woman, the only full subject in the film (insofar as subjectivity means doubts, questioning, inconsistency); and this, surprisingly, leaves to Justine the position of a Master, the one who stabilizes a situation of panic and chaos by introducing a new Master-Signifier, which brings order into a confused situation, conferring on it the stability of meaning. Her Master-Signifier is the ‘magic cave’ that she builds to establish a protected space when the Thing approaches. One should be very careful here: Justine is not a protective Master who offers a beautiful lie – in other words, she is not the Roberto Benigni character in Life Is Beautiful. What she provides is a symbolic fiction which, of course, has no magic efficacy, but which works at its proper level of preventing panic. Justine’s point is not to blind us from the impending catastrophe: the ‘magic cave’ enables us to joyously accept the End. There is nothing morbid in it; such an acceptance is, on the contrary, the necessary background of concrete social engagement.

Justine is thus the only one who is able to propose an appropriate answer to the impending catastrophe, and to the total obliteration of every symbolic frame.

……………………..

Alan Weisman’s book The World Without Us, a vision of what would have happened if humanity (and only humanity) were suddenly to disappear from the earth – natural diversity blooming again, nature gradually overgrowing human arte-facts. In imagining the world without us, we, humans, are reduced to a pure disembodied gaze observing our own absence, and, as Lacan pointed out, this is the fundamental subjective position of fantasy: to observe the world in the condition of the subject’s non-existence (the fantasy of witnessing the act of one’s own conception, the parental copulation, or of witnessing one’s own burial, like Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn). The World Without Us is thus fantasy at its purest: witnessing the Earth itself retaining its pre-castrated state of innocence, before we hu-mans spoiled it with our hubris. So while The Tree of Life escapes into a similar cosmic fantasy of a world without us, Melancholia does not do the same. It does not imagine the end of the world in order to escape from family deadlock: Justine really is melancholic, deprived of the fantasmatic gaze. That is to say, melancholy is, at its most radical, not the failure of the work of mourning, the persisting attachment to the lost object, but their very opposite: ‘melancholy offers the paradox of an intention to mourn that precedes and anticipates the loss of the object’.

Therein resides the melancholic’s stratagem: the only way to possess an object that we never had, which was from the very outset lost, is to treat an object that we still fully possess as if this object is already lost. This is what provides a unique flavour to a melancholic love relationship, such as the one between Newland and Countess Olenska in Wharton’s The Age of Innocence: although the partners are still together, immensely in love, enjoying each other’s presence, the shadow of the future separation already colours their relationship, so that they perceive their current pleasures under the aegis of the catastrophe (separation) to come. In this precise sense, melancholy effectively is the beginning of philosophy – and, in this precise sense, Justine from Melancholia is not melancholic: her loss is the absolute loss, the end of the world, and what Justine mourns in advance is this absolute loss – she is literally living in the end time. When catastrophe was just a threat of catastrophe, she was merely a depressed melancholic; once the threat is here, she finds herself in her element.

And here we reach the limit of event as re-framing: in Melancholia, the event is no longer a mere change of frame, it is the destruction of frame as such, i.e., the disappearance of humanity, the material support of every frame. But is such a total destruction the only way to acquire a distance from the frame that regulates our access to reality? The psychoanalytic name for this frame is fantasy, so the question can also be put in the terms of fantasy: can we acquire a distance towards our fundamental fantasy, or, as Lacan put it, can we traverse our fantasy?


Zizek, S. (2014) Event: Philosophy in Transit. London: Penguin Books Ltd.