Lars von Trier's Melancholia

I've seen a few movies by Lars von Trier. Like Dogville  and Manderlay which did nothing for me.  Other people seemed to love them. Then there was Antichrist which starts out with a child's death intercut with an apparently unsimulated sex scene.

I didn't hold von Trier's long, rambling comments at the Cannes Film Festival against him. Being unfunny isn't a mortal sin. He had gone through life thinking that his Jewish step-father was his father. His mother told him on her deathbed that his father was actually a German fellow. Von Trier talked about this and kept using the term "Nazi" instead of "German". Maybe it would have been funny in Danish.

But Melancholia was great. With Charlotte Gainsbourg, Kirsten Dunst, Kiefer Sutherland. A large cast. It begins as an extremely expensive wedding held in a castle in Sweden. Things go rather badly as big weddings often do in movies. The bride has a strained relationship with her sister. They keep looking at the stars. A planet will soon go hurtling past, threatening to collide with the Earth. Kiefer Sutherland has his telescope set up and they get the kid out of bed to watch this amazing event.

I had seen this one on a "top ten" list by  J. Hoberman, and there it was in my Queue on Netflix. It's available now for instant viewing.