Last night, I completed watching a movie that involved a cosmic collision. It took me three tries to completely watch the movie, partly because it was relatively slow moving and partly because my wife wasn’t interested in it at all.
The Danish movie, Melancholia, by Lars Von Trier stars Kristen Dunst (Justine), Charlotte Gainsbourg (Claire, Justine’s sister) and Kiefer Sutherland (John, Claire’s husband). The acting is very good and the scenery is extremely beautiful.
The movie takes place on an estate with a 19 hole golf course, horses and mansion to die for. There is not one scene of a city or city life in the entire movie.
Wagner’s prelude to Tristan and Isolde provides the theme and background music and is played over and over again.
It begins with Justine’s wedding reception and we learn that she is a very depressed individual. Later in the film, she is almost catatonic and isn’t able to take care of herself.
Then we see the approach of Melancholia, a rogue planet on a cosmic collision course with Earth.
Justine calms down, Claire gets frantic and John kills himself.
Justine declares that we are all alone. There is no other life in the universe and she just knows this to be true.
The movie ends with Justin, Claire and Claire’s son sitting on the grass under a collection of sticks in the form of a teepee without a cover, waiting for the final collision between Melancholia and Earth.
You may know that cosmologists believe that the Moon was formed by the impact of a planet the size of Mars with the Earth some 4.5 billion years ago.
You may not know that the Moon may be the chief reason there is life on earth. This is because of the effect of the tides on the oceans. The tides aided in the formation of life forms as it stirred up the organic compounds and joined them together in the oceans of antiquity.
What would you do if you were faced with a cosmic collision with a rogue planet? Would you practice the Five Contemplations and be at peace like Justine? Or would you run around frantically, like Claire?
Would you take solace in the fact that life would probably regenerate on Earth in perhaps a million years or ten?
What are you feelings and thoughts about this situation? Please share them with me.
