Depression in von Trier's Melancholia (2011)

Trisha Malhotra

In 1917, Sigmund Freud published a seminal essay scaling the difference between 'mourning' the loss of a loved one and 'melancholia' as a debilitating pervasive condition. He wrote, " The melancholic displays something else besides which is lacking in mourning—an extraordinary diminution in self-regard, an impoverishment of ego on a grand scale... completed by sleeplessness, a refusal to take nourishment, and by an overcoming of the instinct which compels every living thing to cling to life." The word melancholia probably for the first time referenced what is known today as depression. 

Using the title as a reference to the Freudian definition, Lars von Trier has crafted what is described as “a beautiful film about the end of the world”. His movie Melancholia (2011) is a creative exploration of the nature of depression from the perspectives of two women- clinically depressed Justine and her sister Claire. In this post, I explore the idea of what it means to be depressed as rendered by this film.

Classically and minimally, depression is defined as a disorder of mood. The DSM criteria include a loss of interest in daily or retrospectively engaging activities, feelings of hopelessness, suicidality, weight loss or gain from appetite changes, insomnia or hypersomnia, and many other behavioural markers typifying major depressive disorder. An important but seemingly disregarded symptom is "psychomotor retardation" - the subjective slowing down of a person's movements and thoughts. Depression, in other words, is debilitating. 

In Melancholia (2011), psychomotor retardation is poetically depicted through surreal and dreamlike sequences involving Justine and Claire. As a newlywed, still in her wedding dress, Justine braves a storm by walking across a meadow outside her home where the ground is sinking. Her movements are slowed down because her feet are trapped in mud that seems to be sucking her in. Above her, the sky is cloudy with flashes of lightning. This sequence represents Justine's warped conception of having to brave through her own wedding. Her depression leads her to falsely believe that the world around her is falling or will come to fall apart which makes the discordance of her current role -that of a happy wife- unbearable. 

Depression is popularly correlated with problems or imbalances of neurotransmitters serotonin, norepinephrine and dopamine in the brain. Of these, serotonin is associated with regulating sleep, aggression, eating, sexual behaviour and mood. Each of these actions is anomalously portrayed through the character of Justine. Since it is her wedding, guests continually ask her ‘Are you happy?’ Suffering from bouts of irritation in response, Justine leaves the wedding reception on multiple occasions. She sits in the bathtub, walks across the forest near the house, and swims in the lake. She is often fatigued and lies down to take periodic naps.

The sense of meaninglessness at her endeavour to ‘normalise’ herself through marriage coupled with her apathy towards the empty ritual of hosting a party lead Justine to act in these seemingly absurd ways. Claire, on the other hand, serves as a contrast to better understand the contours of Justine’s depression. Claire is bewildered, disappointed and ashamed at her sister’s behaviour at the wedding. She fails to empathise with Justine. Her hostility and disciplinary-lecturing only serve to strengthen Justine’s negative appraisals about the world.

When the Earth is predicted to collide with another planet, Justine's unsettling feelings about her survival stabilise and she is at peace. Her anxiety is diminished since her reality coincides with the reality of the world. Roles reverse and now Claire experiences both anxiety and what looks like depression at the prospect of no longer having a life with her family. However, Claire is not melancholic but rather mourns, as Freud would distinguish, at the apocalyptic and catastrophic future.

Justine’s longing for drama through catastrophe is labelled as pathological. However, I find myself feeling more sympathetic towards her over Claire. Rituals, like weddings or parties, entail in their subtext, a pretension of character – how one should be- and of behaviour- how one should act. While our behaviour can be outwardly controlled to conform to role-expectations, the emotions we feel are often beyond rationale.

We are all prone to feeling ‘inappropriate’ emotions in situations that demand particular affective, cognitive and behavioural states in the form of roles we must play. Justine’s behaviour in the film was an aggrandised version of her emotions taking over. It was an unbounded expression of the deeply negative prospects she has about her future. Melancholia (2011) advocates that depression is the worst kind of sickness but also the most human.