Review of Melancholia (2011) by Qi Z — 21 Dec 2013

One must be careful about language. At the scene when the groom made his vow, he went for the easy cliche of "I love you more than I can say"; the "xxxx" in a hotel napkin left by the father who excused by signing "your stupid Dad". What we say to each other is often drawn from the well-drained well of cliche and polite-nothingness. One can't ignore the despair behind Justin's eyes when she endures the speech-makings in her own wedding, the impossibility to cross the barrier of actual silence among the contrived noise and chatter. A fraction of Justin's artistic-critical ability is both abused and celebrated as being able to "come up with clever tagline" in her ad agency. Justin's pain is incommunicable, her despair unfathomable; her struggle to connect to a world of normal doomed like the hurling Melancholia to earth.

Light and shadow speak more. In the amber light, the vast green field holds the steady, while Justin thrusted in pain or paralyzed by despair. The kitschy rented castle for her wedding holds the picture-perfect make-believes of others, yet Justin must run away from the pulsing demands of being part of that world and its peopled normality. Her lover can't reach her; her relatives and guests irritated and angered by her. Only her sister can glimpse the darkness. Yet Charlotte differs by the absence of depression; she has a complete and good life -- money, husband, and a son. These two sisters love each other. Charlotte wanted so much to give Justin a perfect wedding so the latter can be "happy"; Justin forced herself to believe such a wedding would indeed make her happy. But happiness is beyond the reach of Justin; drenched in the amber light of melancholia, Justin's despair is irresolvable by the common positive thinking nor the pretension of a "good life".

Doomsday comes to all of us. Individually in the form of death, collectively through the expiration of the whole race/species/genus through causes internal or external. Without the creation of a benevolent God, human consciousness must cope with the reality of a non-being and non-life. Gifted with the consciousness, we are also burdened with the knowledge of our pending demise. Doomsday fables are dry-runs of various forms of confronting death. Being human means to have a life that is both biological and spiritual; pleasure and pain, love and hate, hope and despair, all paired to give the short passage of life meaning -- for the particular life, for particular duration, and then "the rest is silence".