As someone who’s generally not a Lars von Trier fan, I feel compelled to encourage everyone to toss aside your preconceptions and inhibitions and give Melancholia a shot. No, it’s still not your standard, straightforward Hollywood fare, but that’s what makes it such a unique and genuinely special experience and, after chatting with stars Kirsten Dunst, Alexander Skarsgård and Charlotte Gainsbourg, it seems as though von Trier’s unique way of working is what made creating Melancholia such a genuinely special experience for them.
Dunst stars as Justine, a newlywed who attempts to kick off her marriage to Skarsgård’s Michael the right way, but is plagued by depression at their wedding reception. Even with her sister, Claire, played by Gainsbourg, doing everything she can to keep Justine on her feet, her sorrows are all consuming. Meanwhile, a rogue planet called Melancholia looms in the background, threatening to destroy the world as we know it.
Dunst says it herself, Melancholia is a sci-fi movie, but it’s like none you’ve ever seen before. In fact, the film in its entirety is like nothing you’ve ever seen before and that certainly requires an exceptional mind to have behind it.
In honor of Melancholia’s run at the New York Film Festival as well as its upcoming November 11th release, Dunst, Skarsgård and Gainsbourg sat down for a particularly intimate roundtable interview to discuss their experience working on the film from their early days on set with von Trier up until seeing the finished film for the first time. Check it all out in the interview below.
Click here to read the interview.