•From the begining we can see that the poster for for the movie ”Melancholia” released in 2011 is an obvious allusion to John Everett Millais’… [617322]

Masterand: [anonimizat] ”Melancholia ” (2011) ,
a film after the painting
”Ophelia”

•From the begining we can see that the poster for for the movie
”Melancholia” released in 2011 is an obvious allusion to John Everett
Millais’ painting “Ophelia” from 1852 .
•The poster for ”Melancholia” featur es the main actress, Kirsten Dunst , in a
wedding dress, floating serenely in a pond, similar to Ophelia from the
Shakespearean play Hamlet , just before she drowns in a river.

•The relationships between the cinema and the visual arts
have been the subject of many debate s since the invention of
film. Popular paintings have lately been an inspiration for
numorous film creators .
•From the start it becomes clear that ”Melancholia”, even
though a film about impending apocalypse, presents a
reflection on the intimate human drama regarding Justines’
(Kristen Dunst) depression and mental illness and the
relationship between a mentally ill woman and her caretaker
Claire .
•Ophelia , the female main character from William
Shakespeare ’s play Hamlet , is driven mad when her lover
Hamlet murders Ophelia’s father . She dies at a very young
age, suffering from grief and madness .

•The movie ”Melancholia” centers on the reaction of
depressed newlywed to the impending end of the world ,
similar to the end of the world as Ophelia knows it.
•For Ophelia, a young mentaly ill woman, the betrayal of her
lover Hamlet, as he murders her father may seem like the end
of the world . Millais’ painting portra its Ophelia as she hover s
between life and death , basicly just before passing between
two worlds .
•Both the painting ”Ophelia” and the movie ”Melancholia”
depict the consequences of crippling depression and
untreated mental illness a mong young women . The filmmaker
Lars von Trier beautifuly puts on camera the ugly truth about
the depression he was struggling with at that time.

•The movie poster from “Melancholia” resembles the
“Ophelia” painting made in 1852 by Millais, both picturing
a very feminine version of the main character .
•Hysteria was a popular psychological diagnosis in the 19th
century . As one of the literature’s most iconic female hysteric,
Ophelia was bound up in these diagnoses .
•In “Melancholia”, von Trier presents Justine`s mental illness in
contrast to the cosmic apocalyptical drama unfolding in the
sky. The filmmaker focuses on the struggle of small daily
actions .
•The movie illustrates the way people with depression react to
awful events in a more calmly manner, because they already
expect everything that happens to them to be awful .

•“Melancholia” alludes to Ophelia repeatedly . The most
important hint to Ophelia is when Justine`s depression begins to
overtake her on her wedding night and she retreats to a room
filled with art books and flips them open to images that reflect
her emotional distress . Among this images we see Millais’
“Ophelia,” on which the camera lingers for a moment .

•The movie poster at first glance depicts a classic wedding
shot: a beautiful bride in a white dress clasping flowers to
her chest. But, on a closer inspection we can see that
Justine`s is lying half-submerged in water .
•Making a parallel, Justine, just like the drowned Ophelia in
the famous painting made by John Everett Millais is
surrounded by flowers and we can`t say for sure if she is
dead or not. The flowers both women are surrounded with
are a symbol of their loss of both love and sanity .
•Shakespeare's tragedy has a lot to say about mental
distress, but although Hamlet succeeds in driving his lover
mad, Justine is already mentally ill, but her suffering is
enhanced by the world ending .

•Justine’s refusal to exit the world aesthetically as she is
drinking wine and listening to music with her sister, even if
the poster paints her similar to Ophelia , as she is
apparently drowning in her wedding dress and clutching the
bouquet represents her will to remain sane and to continue
living.
•In a society that does not take mental illness as seriously as
it should, is becomes clear that we need more
representations that portray depression as truthfully as
possible, just as we need more female characters who have
got more on their minds .

•Internet Movie DataBase :
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1527186/?ref_= nv_sr_srsg_0
•The Guardian:
https:// www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2011/sep/12/post
er-notes-melancholia -lars-von-trier
•The New York Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/movies/awardsseason/m
anohla -dargis -looks-at-the-overture -to-melancholia.html
•Rudolph Arnheim (1957), Film as Art, University of California
Press.