Circles of the End. Lars von Trier’s "Melancholia"

Abstract

This article reads Lars von Trier’s Melancholia through its opening sequence, understood as the matrix of the entire film. By contrasting scientific knowledge with its imaginary-paranoid counterpart, it shows how both fail in their relation to the object. Melancholy thus reveals not so much a failure of knowledge as a “knowledge in check,” opening the possibility of another form of knowing. Between repetition and destiny, the apocalypse appears as already accomplished, while the act—through its contingency—allows for a rewriting of the “it is written” that structures desire.