MovieChat Forums > Melancholia (2011) Discussion > About the absence of God in this movie.....

About the absence of God in this movie...

posted 8 years ago by elisabethskoven
11 replies | jump to latest

With Lars Von Trier we should know that religion somehow is always an element in his films even when it's not there.

In this film I think it's almost a point in itself that religion was left out of the film. He describes a lot of people without many values and a maincharacter who struggles to find meaning in life. She does not have God in her life which would have made everything more meaningful. The film made me want to believe in God to avoid the emptiness of these characters. Therefore maybe even the moral of the film is: Start believing.

The same in Dogville where Von Trier purposefully left religion out-"I didn't want religion to enter the film". The preacher of Dogville had left and never been replaced and so they missed a moral leader and had to do with pseudointellectual Tom. That's also a way of saying-look how terrible everything can become without a truly moral center.

LVT I know from reading his biography is someone who would really, really like to believe, but just can't. What do you think about this theory?

[–] mvgodinho 8 years ago

There is no God. Period.

[–] SunshipBalloons2011 8 years ago

OP, I think you missed it.

However, most critical opinions are all about projection or what baggage you are bringing when viewing a film, especially one like this. I can't imagine the general consensus of one who would actually sit thru a Lars Von Tier film could ever walk away with the film message being "start believing".

This film effectively lays out the effects of depression in its severest incapacitated form and the focus of one psyche of such an anti-social disorder, inability to conform to the world....and later her dominance to successfully function in the upcoming destruction of this same world vs. the panic/cowardice of the same people scolding her depressive state in their world.

It has nothing to do with religion as religion to a depressive person with her intellect, is void and she is surpassed its need.

[–] PoppyTransfusion 8 years ago

At the beginning of the film Justine has a vision of the end. She knows already that the end is nigh. Her vision is distressing as she stands alone witnessing events that include her sister struggling to flee with her son and the horse collapsing. When the end comes - the trio are together. The horse we never see but he returns and is eating grass when last we see him. The ending is brief and final but it is not separate. There was a serendipity that visited the trio; something with which John was not blessed.

I'm scared of the middle place between light and nowhere

[–] 8 years ago

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[–] storm-the-dog 8 years ago

The preacher of Dogville had left and never been replaced and so they missed a moral leader and had to do with pseudointellectual Tom. That's also a way of saying-look how terrible everything can become without a truly moral center.

Nope, IMHO that's his way of expressing the view that the concept of God is a pseudo-intellectual exercise.

LVT I know from reading his biography is someone who would really, really like to believe, but just can't.

In your view. Maybe he can't because he really, really can't bring himself to believe in a fiction.

...it's just another dumb film, get over it.

[–] jojozlo 8 years ago

Genies theory, makes perfect sense the no god concept here and in Dogville.

[–] Parawhore4 8 years ago

I think they were going for something straight forward no magic is going to stop this type of story. This rogue planet is going to hit earth and there is nothing anyone can do to stop it. Adding religion would've just been like umm... So when is god going to come down poof the planet away and start his judgment on us for our wicked ways. The movie is about depression not about the actual fall of civilization as the planet approaches.

[–] ficoce 8 years ago

It's there, he just shifted from a theological God to a universal God many of old philosophers believed in. When looked at from this standpoint the movie almost becomes a study of different doctrines. Lars studied the stoics.