So, two caveats before we move on: 1) This review will include "spoilers," if that term even applies for a film like this, and 2) This review will probably, consciously or unconsciously, cop the style of Zizek, and apply (read: steal) his ideas.
The film follows two sisters, Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) in two episodes (the theme of duality is important throughout, more on that in a second) presented back to back -- first, a wedding which takes up fully 2/3rds of the film, and then secondly, the return of Justine to the extravagant estate where the wedding was held, and where she, her sister, and her sister's family will witness the end of the world. That's about as brief a synopsis as I can give of the plot, and of course it elides tons of details and doesn't touch at all on the beauty of the shots from a cinematographic point of view. There are, I think, only about 6 characters that need particular mentioning. These are Justine and (Dunst), Claire (Gainsbourg) -- two sisters --, John, Claire's husband (Kiefer Sutherland), Leo, Claire and John's son, and Claire and Justine's parents, Gaby and Father.
On one level, it seems like the most important thematic is the duality/pairing off that exists everywhere in the movie: Justine/Claire, Gaby/Father, the aborted Justine/Michael (Alex Skarsgard), Betty/Betty, Earth/Melancholia, Earth/Justine, and Melancholia/Justine. Each of these pairings is filled with it's own sort of automatic content: sisterhood, marriage, excess, whatever. Viewing the film in terms of the successes and failures of each of these pairings allows one reading of the narrative that really is about melancholy, and about the artificiality and tenuousness of our relationships and all that. But, being the dirty, stinking Leftist that I am, I want to push the plot towards a specific direction: that of allegory. It seems to me that what is important about the movie as a political/environmental statement exists not very far into the interior of the film, I think it's there for anyone to see, and that maybe it's even too easy. Whether this reflects the simplicity of the movie or of my mind is debatable, though I would suggest that latter.
What resonates with me about the notion of the impending end of the world starts with something Zizek says, with a nod to Fredric Jameson, in Living in the End Times:
"Fredric Jameson's old quip holds today more than ever: it is easier to imagine a total catastrophe which ends all life on earth than it is to imagine a real change in capitalist relations... All one has to do here is compare the reaction to the financial meltdown of September 2008 with the Copenhagen conference of 2009: save the planet from global warming (alternatively: save AIDS patients, save those dying for lack of funds for expensive treatments and operations, save the starving children and so on) - all of this can wait a little bit, but the call "Save the banks!" is an unconditional imperative which demands and receives immediate action"(334).
Seeing the film soon after reading this passage, I was struck with the possibility that our cultural products, as they always do, are working to imagine exactly such catastrophes, on an allegorical level, to either forewarn us of our impending doom, or, perhaps, to do the work of psychologically preparing us for the possibility of that doom. Reading Melancholia in this way, things fall into place really quickly. I think there is a way in which the planet, externalized, immediate, perceivable, becomes the embodiment of all of those smaller disasters that exist in our periphery, but don't interact the way they should: Global Warming, sure, but also over-fishing of the oceans, fracking, oil pipelines, loss of habitat, extinction of species, etc. All of these exist, are happening, and are absolutely lamentable and disastrous. A Marxist analysis of this particular situation would talk about the commodification of natural resources, the drive for profit at the expense of ecological stewardship and all of that, in a way that lets us take Jameson's quip seriously: let us, then, in Melancholia, go ahead and stretch the imaginative apparatus to create exactly the end of the world. When we imagine the film this way, it becomes, rather than a tale of depression and ennui, disgust with institutionalized marriage and all the rest, a film about our current environmental predicament, and a character study in which characters are reduced to types who (re)act as representatives of particular groups reacting to our current crisis. This is the reason for Justine's depression: she knows something isn't right, she foresee's the end of the world, and that possibility leaves her emotionally distraught. This state leaves her, at different times in the film almost paralyzed. Doesn't she, then, stand in for the environmental movement as a whole, always castigated as overly emotional, unable to articulate the problems that face us? How could criticisms of the notion of climate change exist, unless they exist in part by thriving on the doubt people feel when faced with "liberals" and "nuts" who make these vulgar attempts to emotionalize our connection to the earth: "she's our mother, we weep for her, we mourn for her" and all of that shit. Even those more astute critics of our treatment of the earth only know that something is happening, and that maybe we should slow down, step back, or whatever. It's no surprise when we meet Justine's parents, then, to find two opposite responses to the possibility of ecological disaster: her father arrives at the wedding with two women (both named Betty, as if both are really just more of one...), immediately gets drunk, and harasses the waitstaff. In him, we have an example of hedonistic excess: since there is nothing to be done, we should enjoy ourselves, we should indulge ourselves and please only ourselves. This notion is reinforced when Justine begs him to stay at the estate with her because she feels a pressing need to talk (to vocalize the problems as she sees them, to express what she is feeling is exactly what he wouldn't be able to stand, since it would challenge his self indulgence). Later, when she arrives at his room, he's already vanished, leaving a ridiculously short and non-explanatory note. He feels no need to justify himself, he just acts, and that's it. Her mother exists at the other end of that spectrum: she is mourning for the earth, she's overwhelmed with her guilt and disgusted by empty social rituals that she thinks ignore the reality of the situation people are in: life is short, we will be unhappy, and the end is coming. That this registers her attitude towards the earth and ecological matters is made clear when Justine witnesses her mother's morning routine, looking from one balcony to the next: her mother is doing some sort of Yoga-style stretching, an exercise that should bring peace of mind, but instead only delays her having to suffer her knowledge of the reality of the world.
Since this has focused mainly on Justine's family, it's important to note her sister, Claire. If Justine and Claire are the offspring of this older generation, who represent the reactions of the old Left of '68 to ecological and political disaster, then they have synthesized these reactions, Justine becoming our paralyzed, despondent ecologists who try to tell everyone the end is nigh to no avail, and Claire trying to make her peace with Capitalists, looking to the wealth and reason of our Capitalist system to allay her fears. That's why she is with John, the wealthy individual who throws the wedding, funding the maintenance of cultural rituals and reacting with glee at the approach of the planet (think here of statements about the possibility of Arctic ice melting, that it would present new opportunities for exploration and trade: don't worry about ecological disaster, our system will appropriate even these disasters for the continued accumulation of profit and exploitation of the Earth). As the wedding closes and it's clear that Justine wont stay with Michael, all of the sociological drama of the film fades away (I'm not arguing that level of the film isn't important... it was incredible), leaving us to the final section of the movie, leaving us to contemplate the end of the earth.
When Claire asks John about the planet, she asks him what his scientists say about it. She doesn't ask it in a way that suggests he employs scientist, but in a way that suggests he looks at particular opinions and particular attitudes about the approaching planet: isn't this exactly what happens with global warming skeptics, who would rather listen to the <2% of scientists who question the data on human-made climate change? His scientists tell him that everything will be fine, disaster not only will be averted, but isn't a possibility in the first place. This leads to one of the most beautiful metaphors of the film, and to scenes I found particularly fascinating, in that they reveal some level of optimism. This metaphor exists in the absurdity of the tools surrounding the observation of the planet. John, the ur-Capitalist of the film makes these vulgar displays of moving his telescope around to get the best view, even going so far as to yell at his butler (if there isn't working/owning class tension here, I don't know where it is), "No, you don't touch this!" The point is, his tool is one of appropriation, distanced observation. It's his way of "having" the planet, or having the experience of the planet. Contrast this with the simple device his son creates: a coil of metal wire at the end of a stick that reveals very basically which way the planet is moving: if it moves towards you, it will soon get too "big" to be seen inside the loop of wire, if it recedes, it will be seen within the loop of wire, a circle getting smaller and smaller. This imaginative tool measures rather than observes the planet, foregrounding the relationship between that planet (again, the figure for our impending ecological doom and apocalyptic disaster) and our own. This is where I think the film, though it ends with the end of the world, is optimistic: the young boy -- the "next generation" -- isn't interested in idly watching the impending disaster, instead, if he can't control or avert the disaster, he wants a way to observe it's scope, he wants a means of warning others about it. As the disaster becomes impossible to avoid, John takes his own life, abandoning his own family to experience the end as they will: he robs them of the possibility of a painless end in a final act of selfishness, taking the sleeping pills Claire procured for the family when she knew the end was nigh. This, I think, stands as a statement about what will happen when all cards are down on the table...
Incidentally, I have an uncle who sometimes argues with me about environmental damage and Capitalism and all that. When I posted a video about overfishing he sarcastically replied "Oh no, fisherman catching fish, what a problem!" I responded that the problem wasn't that they catch fish, but that by-catch makes up 99% of what they haul in, an incredible waste of life, since it's thrown back in, and habitat is destroyed. Confronted with this information, his tactic suddenly changed: "Who cares, we'll destroy the world and people will die and natural balance will be restored." The rhetorical differences in these two responses show the ideological milieu from which he emerges: first, of course the fishing catches fish, that's their job, this is merely an issue of work, making money, all of that. When that information is yoked to the possibility of ecological disaster, he retreats in the opposite direction: of course we're destructive, we're guilty of being destructive and that's why we deserve the impending punishment of starvation and ecological disaster. Never a position between these two poles: perhaps fishing should be regulated in ways that make such by-catch impossible, perhaps we should short-circuit the economy before we short circuit the planet!
It's important, too, to note how the movie ends. Claire, displaying the Freudian death drive (at least, my oversimplified understanding of it) requests that the three remaining people in the huge, obscene estate ("How many holes does my golf course have Justine?" John asks. "18 holes." "That's right." John smiles, and leaves the room) -- Claire, Justine, and Claire and John's son, Leo -- go out on the balcony, listen to music and sip wine. She wants control over how they die. Instead, the unimaginable becomes the object of their final fascinations. Justine tells Leo that she can create a magic cave, in which they'll be safe. This is the final optimistic moment of the movie: in the face of absolute, certain death, Justine and Leo build a teepee looking structure out of sticks, and sit inside their "cave," where Justine instructs Leo to close his eyes to more fully "occupy" the imaginary cave. Now, the three people who foresee the doom, the disaster, and who emotionally respond to it, try to measure it, and try to control their death are in an imaginary space, where, the viewer is left to think, they imagine their way out of the end of the world.
This review elides all sorts of details and ideas I wanted to touch on, but I feel like it's going pretty long already. Whether this is a conscious part of the writing and shooting of the movie, I feel like the details are persuasive enough to allow us to read the film this way. At least, I hope you found something interesting or persuasive in this. If this acts as nothing else, maybe it can illustrate the way an idea or perspective can be used to read a film in a particular light. The notion that it's easy for us to imagine the end of the world is one that is, to me, striking and interesting. I'm sure the next time I see the movie, that these themes wont be so dominant in my mind, and I can see it a whole new way.
Wow. Thanks for writing this. This is exactly what I was thinking about this movie the entire time. You explain it clearly and with appropriate references to the other relevant ideas and things in real life.
ReplyDeleteHey, thanks, Jeff. I'm glad at least someone finds this reading interesting!
ReplyDeleteThanks for your post. I just saw the movie tonight and was physically shaken by it. I want to ask what you make of Justine's depression, but I don't know if it really functions as a metaphor beyond our human imbalances. Which, I guess, is huge; our own emotional imbalances are what keep us from taking care; just as Justine wouldn't take care of her relationship or bathe.
ReplyDeleteI was curious about Justine's depression as seen in the two chapters. In Part One, we see a really confused, distracted woman. But not really 'sick.' In part Two: Claire, Justine has just ended her relationship, and appears to be much more mentally ill than just depressed. Bursting into tears because the meatloaf tastes like ashes, etc. Is that just how she seems from Claire's point of view? She was much more cruel and removed.
Coming into the movie, I thought (from the trailer) that the nearness of the planet made everyone lose their minds.
Yeah, I'm not really sure what to make of it. The function in the film, to me at least, seems to be to convince you of the "relationship" between the planet and Justine. My sense is that (using my particular reading) Justine, "represents" or stands in for the modern environmental movement... So, she's emotional, depressed, distraught about a disaster that she intuits, but sees no real answer for. When you think about the people you see representing environmentalists/environmentally concerned or aware people on television or in interviews, they are often appealing to people in spiritual/emotional terms: the earth is our "mother," "love your mother," and on and on, to the point where their message seems lost in their own emotionalism.
ReplyDeleteThat's pretty much what I said in the original post... how we extend that to depression, specifically, I'm unsure. One way to think about, I think, is to consider the original comment ("it's easier to imagine the end of the world... etc"), and to think about our current planet-wide situation. If Justine really foresees the end of the planet, a certain amount of depression is more than understandable. She's essentially in mourning throughout the film. When she feels the food "tastes like ash," I think that's a moment in the film when her bodily investment in the earth is most clearly in view. She literally tastes the "afterword" of the earth. The end is so very nigh, so inevitable that her extrasensory perception of the end of the world extends itself into all of her senses.
What I would like to think more about is her frailty, her near-paralysis, the scene when she has to be lifted in and out of the tub, etc... At first I thought that this suggested the ineffectiveness of environmental movements, but that doesn't seem completely satisfactory to me any more. I wonder about thinking about her as a sort of Christ-like figure, that has to take in all of the (future) suffering of the world... I don't know, this is sort of off the cuff, and not well considered at all. It just seems to me she acts as some sort of cypher, or fulcrum on which the fate of the world rests in some contingent way.
Claire, I think, wasn't so much cruel as incredulous. If we (over)extend my central metaphor, she represents the large swath of people in the world that expect the world will continue to run as will, as it always has, etc. She doesn't really trust her husband (who represents centralized economic, social, scientific power), she has the nagging sense that Justine DOES know what she's talking about, she has the nagging sense that she should act to protect her child, etc. Her role, then, is to represent what Marx refers to as false consciousness. She thinks that she thinks about things the right way, but isn't completely sure. Part of that ideology that she's invested in (the world, and understanding of the world, of her husband) is to discount and dismiss the overly emotional psuedo-spiritualism of someone like Justine. My thinking is that what appears as cruelty is Claire trying to deal with those internal contradictions, and to distance herself from Justine as a way of 1) rejecting the possibility of the destruction of the earth, and 2) proving to John that her alignment is with him, with his confidence of the human ability to overcome the impending disaster. That's where the contradiction is most evident: she wants him to avert a disaster that he wont allow her to believe is a possibility.
That's my thinking anyhow.... Does that clarify anything or, conversely, make things more confusing? Thanks for reading!