Places of Fancy

Opening scene from 'Melancholia' Asteroids and comets as bringers of the apocalypse? That's so 1998.  When it premiered in 2011, "Melancholia" brought a fresh take on the genre, one that would echo in later works such as "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story" and "Carol & The End of the World." The apocalyptic horseman in the Lars von Trier film is not a mischievous rock like the ones on "Don't Look Up," "Deep Impact," and "Armageddon." It's a whole, full-sized planet.  That planetary threat, "Melancholia," is supposed to have been orbiting behind the sun all along, hiding just enough to be locked in a "dance of death" with Earth and us, its unwitting inhabitants.  It's also a clever plot device, a mirror to the plight of Kirsten Dunst's character. Imagine an object so vast, so larger than life that it engulfs your entire existence, and you've got the perfect metaphor for Justine...