This is the way the world ends / This is the way the world ends / This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper - T.S Eliot - The Hollow Men (1925)
The Terrence Malick style montage of slo-mo imagery at the start of Melancholia tells us from the outset that there will be no happy ending here. Death, not life is the key motif.
But the end of the world scenario is never really convincing. A few flurries of snow, a brief hail storm and the appearance of a 19th hole on an 18-hole golf course are the only real signs that something is amiss.
Earth seems to be going about business as normal despite it being on a collision course with the Planet Melancholia.
This has to be the strangest doomsday movie ever made with a privileged group of characters who exist, then cease to exist, in isolation from the rest of the world. We see no mass panic and no attempt by the U.S. military to make a last-ditch attempt to save our bacon. One character goes online to check the rogue planet’s progress but no-one else is bothered enough to tune in to the TV or radio. Continue reading
