You missed my point.

"John, now that I'm out of the doghouse can we talk about the movie?"

Quit talking about doghouses when I'm trying to talk about Melancholia.

Seriously, my whole point was that I was talking about aspects of Melancholia by pointing out how it relates to those aspects in other movies.

"But honestly man THE GREEN LANTERN isn’t about the end of the world"

Green Lantern features a guy who pretends to have it all together who is really immature and childish, who sabatoges relationships and puts himself in situations close to death because he experiences bouts of crippling fear. It features an object in space heading toward earth, which, once it arrives, will destroy the whole earth. The film then explores this character's response to this threat.

Do you not see that Green Lantern and Melancholia are doing similar things (in obviously different ways) and coming to much different conclusions? If Melancholia is to be compared to any other movies, shouldn't it be compared to the "things hurtling through space about to kill the Earth" movies?

Symbolically, Hal Jordan's life (as it was) comes to an end so that the life of the world can be renewed.

vT is instead making a true antihero film.

Hal Jordan is a privileged rich kid who has always gotten things his way. His family and friends put up with his mental illness and even cover for him. Fair enough? Now imagine a scene of Hal Jordan embracing his fear and longing for the yellow cloud to swallow him up. Imagine a long shot of Ryan Reynolds laying naked on a rock in ecstasy as the yellow cloud approaches.

But, an antihero is usually still our hero. In Melancholia, Justine's strength is in her connection to Melancholia. She wins her personal struggle against the world and against herself only by Melancholia crashing into earth. This is the true strength of Melancholia. Justine's depression is vindicated. She's not cured. Everyone else is. Death to everyone. In context, and contrary to vT, the end of everything is the happiest ending one of vT's films has ever had. The film is subversive in a way that vT's previous juvenile pranks never have been. Jeff can go play in his little kiddie punk playground. I'm glad that vT's grown up.

Chris, I get the ambivalence. I was feeling it hard during and after the movie. It wasn't until thinking about it on my drive home and then the next morning that I started to really appreciate some of what vT is doing. It helped that I had Green Lantern to compare it to. :)