In Sigmund Freud’s essay ‘Mourning and Melancholia’ (1914-1916), written in collaboration with his daughter Anna Freud, he charts a correlation between these two pathological dispositions with analogous emotional traits. Mourning and melancholia are intertwined with profoundly similar features such as the loss of a loved object and dwelling on loss. The lugubriousness of melancholia resides in a doleful and wistful disposition. In 2011, Danish director Lars Von Trier released his film Melancholia. The idea of the film originated during a therapy session Lars von Trier attended to treat his depression as a way to examine the human psyche during a disaster. Highly stylized, the film narrates two sisters (Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg) whose relationships unravel as a nearby planet threatens to collide with the Earth. Both sisters suffer psychic crisis at the prospect of annihilation. Imagining Armageddon, the sisters narrate a nihilism and acceptance of the finality of things. With a state of mind as the starting point, Von Trier’s film is haunted by the anxieties of melancholiacs, illuminated by Saturn, the planet for melancholia and Richard Wagner’s tumultuous overtures.
View File: MELANCHOLIA
