Memories, cinema and the end of the world: analysis of the film Melancholia by Lars von Trier

Abstract

The present paper, starting from the articulation of the concepts of dialogism, as initially defended by Bakhtin, argues that a film is a cultural product inscribed in a socio-historical period. The proposal was to interrogate the film, since it offers a set of representations that refer directly or indirectly to the society. For that, the film Melancolia, by director Lars von Trier, was chosen as the work analyzed. The methodology used was a qualitative approach, with procedures for a deconstruction of some scenes, chosen in a non-probabilistic way, but that contemplate the whole in its parts. The analysis focused in particular on the direction of photography and the analysis of the script as a philosophical argument, all to understand the major discursive construction proposed in the work. This paper has a philosophical-eschatological analysis and a search to understand how the direction of photography helps to better build the end of the world. Thus, the narrative of the film is better understood when thought from intertextuality, when considering the various voices of speech, such as chromatic color, paintings, formats, history, works of art (patterns and processes inserted in the film).