Lars von Trier to destroy the world!

Lars von Trier has shared a rather large nugget of information regarding his upcoming feature film Melancholia: The ending! Or rather, the beginning. Allow us to explain…

Politiken have some excerpts from Von Trier’s interview with journalist Nils Thorsen for the upcoming book Geniet (The Genius), in which the Danish auteur revealed the film’s opening sequence:

“In ‘Melancholia’ I start with the end. Because what is interesting is not what happens but how it happens! So we begin by seeing the world being crushed, then we can tell the story afterwards…In this way you don’t have to sit and form theories about what will happen, but can delve down into some other levels and become interested in the pictures and the universe – that’s what I imagine.”

We’ve long known that the film would be a psychological disaster film centered around Planet Melancholia, an enormous celestial body that looms threateningly close to Earth. But only in our wildest dreams could we have predicted that Von Trier would depict the end of the world in his (aptly-titled) emotional disaster film!

Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg star as sisters who deal with the impending apocalypse in different ways.

You can read more about Melancholia over at Politiken. The film also stars Kiefer Sutherland, Charlotte Rampling, Alexander Skarsgaard, Stellan Skarsgaard and Udo Kier.

Discuss: Yay!