Melancholia: An Analysis of an Opening

The opening sequence of Lars von Trier’s 2011 film Melancholia runs for 8 minutes and 30 seconds before the earthy, scrawled title drop brings it to a close. Throughout these 8 minutes there is no dialogue. Rather, the acoustic space is filled with the bewitching overture of Wagner’s opera ‘Tristan and Isolde’, providing a rich musical counterpart to the haunting visuals of the film’s own prelude. The film is made up of two acts, with the first focusing on Justine (Kirsten Dunst) who, despite her recent marriage, cannot find any release from her intense depression. The second act, which focuses on her sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and her attempts to care for Justine, is accompanied by their ominous discovery of a rogue planet, Melancholia, and its imminent collision with Earth. The film follows the course of both sisters’ coming-to-terms with their fates. Von Trier’s opening is in every essence the beginning of the end. 

 

As the black screen fades away to reveal a close-up of Justine’s face, her eyes open at a dramatic pause in the music to stare directly at the audience. Birds begin to fall from the sky around her in slow motion. At the centre of the establishing shot which follows, of the immaculate lawn of the stately home that Claire shares with her husband, is a sundial: time, death and decadence are brought together in highly stylised visuals, revealing the film’s ending before it has even begun.

 

In time with the crescendo, the shot shifts to outer space where Melancholia edges ever closer towards Earth. The feeling of hopelessness is cosmic in scale; at the same time, in the intense aestheticism of the scene lies the suggestion that death can be beautiful. In the eerie glow of the northern lights, a large black horse crashes in slow motion to the ground. Justine stands, arms outstretched, whilst a swarm of bugs flies past her. The juxtaposition signals clearly that the end of days has arrived, recalling Revelation 9:7 – ‘the shape of the locusts was like horses prepared for battle’. Later in the sequence, the bible is again referenced when, through a window, we see one of the hedges of the formal garden aflame. This particular ‘burning bush’, however, does not prophesise a land of milk and honey, but is instead the signal fire for the impending apocalypse.