Movies

The anatomy of melancholy in Lars Von Trier’s trilogy

by Antigoni Kavoura

She holds her father’s hand. They walk together through the park. It is a cold, snowy winter day. “In summer everything is green and idyllic, but in the winter the branches and the trunks all stand out”, her father says.

“Just look at how crooked they all are. The branches have to carry all the leaves to the sunlight; that’s one long struggle for survival”. This is a scene from the 2013 two-part drama film Nymph()maniac, directed by Lars Von Trier. 

Nymph()maniac together with the two prior works, Antichrist (2009) and Melancholia (2011), form the so-called  Von Trier’s “Depression Trilogy”. Centered on mentally-ill female protagonists, all three films deal with such subjects as social acceptance, sexuality, melancholy, suffering and loneliness. Von Trier - openly admitting his identification with the leading characters of his films – this time invites us to explore the nature of his fears. Being known for his struggle with mental illness, the director relies on his personal experience and creativity and conducts a cinematic anatomy of melancholy.

“I am afraid of everything in life, except filmmaking”, Von Trier confesses in his recent interview for Observer. His devotion to moviemaking traces from his childhood in Denmark, when at the age of eleven he began producing his first short movies. His experimentation with movies continued throughout school and reached a peak during his studying years in the National School of Denmark. It was during his film studies when he developed a lifelong passion for breaking rules and conventions.

Von Trier’s movies are often characterized as art house cinema; films not designed for commercial profit and mass appeal, widely appreciated for their aesthetic value and their unconventional content. Back in the 1990s, in an attempt to emphasize the director’s authorial expressiveness as well as to prove that quality is not defined by budgets, he formed together with a group of his filmmaking colleagues, a set of rules known as “Dogme 95”. The use of hand-held camera, the emphasis on the actors’ performances and the careful selection of film subjects were some of the group’s goals.  

Aesthetic rules such as the shooting of colorful films and the depiction of natural outdoor settings, prevailed over any political demands. Although the group of “Dogme 95” officially broke up in 2005, the essence of their manifesto, the attentiveness to aesthetic rules, still pervades Von Trier’s work.

As Robert Sinnerbrink explains in his article “Anatomy of Melancholia”, melancholy is evoked in the depression trilogy films as a mood, an aesthetic sensibility that contemporary cinema has all but forgotten.

Antichrist commences with a series of black-and-white images set in slow motion, depicting a young couple being involved in a sexual intercourse. She (Charlotte Gainsbourg) sinks into a deep depression after her baby boy accidentally loses his life. Her husband (Willem Dafoe), as a professional therapist himself, decides to treat her by practicing a form of exposure therapy. The health condition of She progressively worsens, turning into a violent psychosis as the couple travels to the mountains seeking for peace and emotional relief.

 The heroine’s suffering is depicted everywhere; in the hospital room, in her bedroom where she sleeps with her husband, in their remote mountain cabin. All indoor spaces are dark and dirty; as dark and dirty as human souls can be. The melancholic Polaroid photos her husband holds in his hands, show an unhappy mother in a distant position from her own child. Unsatisfied with her marriage, unhappy due to her illness, She constitutes the central figure of the film. Self-injury, panic attacks, aggressive behavior and violent acts are to come.

In this film, Von Trier presents nature as the extension of the suffering human souls; it becomes the third protagonist. The slow-motion scenes from the woman’s walk in the woods, her personal Eden, are characteristic of her disturbed psychic world. The forest is dark and scary, the animals are hiding and the stream is running without a sound. In another horrifying scene, nature functions as a human trap and its evil side is undermined: the couple is seen to make love under an old tree, while numerous arms emerge from the roots of the tree.

In their deadly silent bedroom, He tells her wife to show courage and stay in the situation that frightens her most. Later on, in the remote shadowy cottage, She confesses to him that she is able to hear the cry of all the things that are to die. Facing our common inner fears can be terrifying and sorrowful. Losing all those you love and care about, is truly agonizing.

The use of images with great aesthetic power is met again in Melancholia. The film’s story revolves around two sisters; Justine (Kirsten Dunst), a clinically depressed woman and her sister Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), a middle-aged working mother. Claire and her rich husband (Kiefer Sutherland), organize an elegant ceremony to please Justine in her wedding day. Meanwhile, a newly discovered planet, named Melancholia, approaches Earth and threatens terrestrial life with extinction. The impending destruction of the world serves as a metaphor for Justine’s depression.

In the opening of the film, several colorful images connected with key events of the plot, appear. A tired, with pale face and empty gaze Justine, is depicted. Dead birds fall behind her. The blue-colored planet, slowly approaches Earth. A well-known painting by the Flemish artist Pieter Bruegel, depicting hunters in a snowy winter landscape, is destroyed by fire. Justine, in her wedding dress, crosses a park as her boots sink into the grassy ground. She is desperately helpless.

The images successfully correlate with Justine’s condition. She suffers, she cries, she barely moves, she has lost her vitality for activities of daily living. By presenting these slow-motion shots, Von Trier confuses us. The images reveal a tension between mobility and immobility, between Justine’s energetic moments and those of deep sorrow and despair. In the viewer’s mind a basic question arises; is life still or is it moving? To increase the surprise and confusion, Von Trier uses the Prelude to Richard Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde love drama as a music theme. It is an emotional piece, known for its shift from traditional tonal harmony to almost atonality. The music score accompanies the still shots of characters and creates a sense of constant tension that will not resolve until the end of the movie comes.

Compared to Antichrist, the depiction of nature in Melancholia is not of the same symbolic significance. A few pleasing nature scenes are used to evoke a sense of calmness. In one of them, Justine is found lying naked on a river bank near her house, bathing in the light of the Moon and Melancholia. The trees stand silently in the background as the water mirrors the motionless woman.

Throughout the movie, Justine is constantly asked to stop mourning, make a deal with her close relatives and simply be happy. Vulnerable in her disease, she tries to please everyone. “I smile and smile and smile”, she apologetically tells her sister. As the story continues, all characters under Melancholia’s threat, experience immense panic and fear except for the unhappy Justine. She remains peaceful, willing to face the fear of extinction. “I know things”, she tells Claire. Through her personal battle with her illness, she became able to clearly understand one thing; it takes strength to be weak.

In the four-hour drama Nymph()maniac, Von Trier uses the motif of dark indoor and outdoor spaces as he also did in Antichrist. A young woman, Joe (mature one played by Charlotte Gainsbourg and her younger self by Stacy Martin) is found in a dark path behind a block of flats by the middle-aged scholar Seligman (Stellan Skarsgård). She lies on a pavement, beaten up and almost unconscious. The stranger takes Joe to his empty, shadowy flat, treats her and politely asks to hear her story. From the first scenes, a mysterious and suspenseful atmosphere is created.

In a cold room, Joe begins describing to Seligman how her life desire to explore her sexuality caused her as much sorrow as it gave her pleasure. Her focus on her personal satisfaction, hurt the people she loved most. With a serious, unsmiling face, she narrates her hypersexual life, frequently descending into a spiral of guilt and self-hatred. “I am ashamed of what I became but it was beyond my control”, she tells Seligman in a self-condemning way of speech.

Her sexual life is portrayed through various colorful scenes of sex. These scenes are only interrupted by black-and-white shots when Joe speaks about her father. She is seen as a kid walking through her favorite park together with her beloved father. They observe the flora around them. Similarly to Antichrist, nature plays a protagonist role in the film; the trees represent the human suffering souls. However, in Nymph()maniac, the natural elements are not evil. The park is not a hostile place, but a place of peacefulness, safety and nostalgia. Later on, in a symbolic scene, Joe finds her own soul tree; it is one on the top of a hill. The tree, hit by the wind and the rain, has almost completely turned sideways but it still stands still; its strong roots are deeply buried.

Classical music themes are also used in certain scenes of the film to add a melancholic tone in Joe’s narrative. In one scene, Joe is seen in a very young age in her family house, playing with one of her close friends. They roll on the floor of a flooded bathroom. It is the beginning of her bodily self-exploration. The Waltz No. 2 from the second Jazz suite of the Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovitz is heard in the background. The piece is a popular short and light composition; it adds a playful and nostalgic tone to Joe’s narrative. In another interesting scene, Joe strolls through the park of her childhood, thinking of the man she met in her office. The Sonata in A Major for Violin and Piano by the Belgian composer César Franck accompanies her walk through the trees and benches of the park. The classic sonata piece, filled with drama and poignancy, creates a very emotional moment in the film. At this point, Joe realizes she has developed feelings for the young man.

For the heroine, sexuality is the strongest force in human beings. As the story goes, we see her attending a group meeting for psychological support to sex addicts. By presenting herself not as a sex addict but as a nymphomaniac, she openly defends her sexual identity. “I am a nymphomaniac and I love myself for being one. But above all, I love my filthy dirty lust”, she says as she addresses to the group. Through her overall past-life confessions to Seligman, Joe for the first time attempts to understand her own behavior and desires. In this way, she clears the path to her self-acceptance.

In all three movies, melancholic or - clinically said - depressive people suffer from loneliness and misunderstanding. In modern days, mental illness still remains a taboo discussion subject and mentally-ill people are often treated as social outcasts. Von Trier offers us the opportunity to get closer to mental illness, observe its manifestations and implications and comprehend its complex nature.

The depression trilogy, constitutes a sublime aesthetic experience. Von Trier proves to be a skillful manipulator of images, metaphors and musical pieces. His surgical use of slow-motion shots, produces new fantasies about the history and feel of cinema. Melancholy is not simply represented, it is rather felt. Apart from being the common subject of the movies, melancholy is evoked as a mood that defines our everyday activity; one that expresses our common existential fears and modern social maladies. In Von Trier’s world, we experience the charm of melancholy as part of our life, of our long struggle for survival.