BATTLE OF THE FAVES: Melancholia vs. Marnie

The Editors of In the Mood discuss two of their favourite films. This month: mommy issues, horse girls, and cataclysms.

Gabrielle: So this is the first edition of Battle of the Faves. In one corner, we have Lars von Trier with 2011’s Melancholia, and in the other side of the ring, Alfred Hitchcock with Marnie. Or we might say… battle of the blondes! 

Sennah: I had written in my notes, “blonde horse girls with mommy issues.”

Gabrielle: Lol, very true. So Melancholia is your fave, tell me about the first time you saw it.

Sennah: I first saw it with my dad, and I didn’t really like it—I was a bit hangry and nauseous, and excited to go for dinner at Boston Pizza afterwards. It all kind of just went over my head.

Gabrielle: And how was it watching it this time? I imagine you've watched it at least once more since the first time. 

Sennah: Yeah! I was going through my first big depressive spell, crying while eating my favourite ramen because I realized it didn’t taste like anything. And suddenly the movie came flooding back for the first time in like, eight years—specifically that line Justine (Kirsten Dunst) says as she tries to eat her favourite meatloaf: “it tastes like ashes.” It was this pathetic, but kind of magical moment. Then I rewatched it at the start of the pandemic, and I felt like I finally “got” it.

Gabrielle: Did it feel different at this age? Like a year or two past your second watch?

Sennah: Yeah, definitely. This time, I was oscillating between relating to everyone—even John (Kiefer Sutherland), who’s just completely fed up with both sisters, and yet still kind of desperately trying to keep everybody happy, until the very end. What was your first viewing of this movie like?

Gabrielle: I went to see it in the theatre alone, which was a good call because I would have wanted to be alone afterwards anyway. I remember going down to the subway platform and no one was there. The world did feel different for a moment, sort of hollowed out and silent. At the time I saw valour in Justine’s stance because I also had periods when I was completely paralyzed by despair. I think there is a desire to reframe the stasis and retreat of depression into something intentional, philosophical even.

Watching it now, it's nice because to feel that I relate more to Claire, I’m actually very attached to my life and the bourgeois trappings of relationships, friends, careers. When Claire suggests that they have a glass of wine on the terrace as the world ends, I felt that! 

Sennah: Ha, totally! I know Justine totally tears her apart for wanting that, but I’m like… hm, kinda sounds nice lol.

Gabrielle: I read some old reviews of the film and they were interesting. Most of them praised the film’s aesthetic and technical grandiosity (particularly the opening sequence) but felt that it was philosophically shallow and emotionally unconvincing. One critic said that the whole first half of the movie, the wedding and her breakdown, was preposterous; that no one’s reactions or actions made sense. I mean, clearly, you haven’t been around enough chaotic young women because there’s literally nothing Justine does I haven't seen a friend do.   

Sennah: Totally! As grandiose as the movie was, I thought it was really realistic in how it treats depression, specifically in how it’s a really weird balance of like, you don’t want anyone’s attention, and yet your depression causes the complete opposite. 

Gabrielle: Absolutely. I read a review that critiqued the film for treating depression like a “princess problem,” and I actually love that! I think Justine is treated like a princess, both because she’s entitled and mercurial and because we’ve invested an idea about perfection and privilege in her. I think it’s more interesting that von Trier would choose her as a cypher for his own experience of depression. He does love a female lead! But this choice feels like it’s revealing of his own impulses and desires.

I wonder if, in the depths of depression, he thought that his suffering would be more poignant if he were a beautiful blonde bride and not a middle-aged man; if he could turn his despair into beauty. I think, in the same way, the film is trying to reframe depression. Not as something clinical, chemical, to be fixed, but something that sets you apart bestows you with a kind of clairvoyance and aligns with the very romantic notions of truth and beauty. 

Sennah: Totally. And there are so many indulgent scenes. Like when Justine’s in the bath during her wedding. I love when Michael realizes that both Justine and her mom are both taking baths, and he’s like, “I told you that’s why we shouldn’t have added bathrooms to our guest suites!”

Gabrielle: I love that moment as well. All the men in the film are completely impotent, even before being rendered completely impotent by the cataclysm. Maybe that’s another peek into von Trier’s inner world. Both Melancholia and Marnie tell us a lot about the filmmaker themselves. And it's interesting that both feature beautiful blondes.

Sennah: Yes! Which brings us to our next blonde horse girl: Marnie! When did you first see this film? I first saw it last year; I remembered seeing it in your Letterboxd favourites.

Gabrielle: I first saw Marnie in film school and it was a very stressful screening. It’s such an odd and uncomfortable film and I think the students didn’t know what to make of it. There was a lot of stilted laughter and groaning. I remember the room laughed during the rape scene, which I don’t take for disdain or lack of seriousness, but discomfort; the scene is both horrifying and awkward, almost goofy. 

Sennah: It’s like how hyenas laugh when they’re scared!

Gabrielle: Exactly. I remember being completely struck by Marnie because it's not as slick or controlled as his other films, but this sense of something being off made the film more compelling. There’s a lack of balance, the performances are odd, there are so many ugly shots and awkward edits. For someone with that level of perfectionism and obsessive control, Marnie feels like the wheels are coming off. The more I read about Hitchcock’s relationship with Tippi Hedren, the lead, the more this formal unruliness gained psychological dimension.

Sennah: Totally! It’s wild thinking about this imitation loop between the film and real life.

Gabrielle: Did you catch Hitchcock’s cameo? 

Sennah: Yes! Near the beginning?

Gabrielle: That’s right. It’s really unmissable, and I usually miss them! It’s truly one of his least subtle and it’s interesting that he would make himself so present in the film because it feels like the film that betrays the most about him. What did you think of your rewatch?

Sennah: Like Melancholia, the first time I watched Marnie, I didn’t really like it! I’m a bit hot and cold with Hitchcock, to be honest. But I enjoyed it much more on rewatch—all the horse imagery was really striking this time around. Especially when it dies; that scene is brutal. I’ve always been really in awe of and spooked by horses. They’re such beasts!

Gabrielle: Horses are cool. They're powerful and dangerous but they're also kind of delicate, they seem breakable. Lol, sounds like I’m describing a woman! 

Horses are part of courtship in a lot of literature, but I think they’re also a symbol for independence. Both a means of escape and a relationship that isn’t about family or marriage. 

Sennah: Yeah, definitely. And then, and then of course that brings back the idea of “taming” or having some kind of control over something, for better or worse. I love the scenes when Marnie is riding her horse; they really stood out to me in this rewatch, along with the horse imagery in Melancholia. Both horses represent this attempt to control, and its lack... and then death, too.

Gabrielle: Absolutely, the horse is Marnie’s wild nature, her fear of men. And the horse has to die for her to move into the world of sex and romance.

We both picked films in which auteurs like to inflict some measure of torture on their leads, their princesses. Hitchock, of course, was sexually obsessed with Hedren and tried to coerce her into marrying him by wielding his exclusive contract with her. It’s hard not to read this dynamic in her performance, the gleam in her eye that seems manic, lit up by loathing. 

Sennah: Yeah, totally. It's so unsettling.

Gabrielle: Maybe I’m reading too much into it lol. So, would you recommend Melancholia still?

Sennah: Definitely! It may be hilarious, irritating, devastating, or comforting, depending on your mental state. Or maybe all of the above! I know it’s cheesy to say this, but I do love a movie that can grow and change along with you. And would you recommend Marnie still, despite, or perhaps because of its flaws?

Gabrielle: I would recommend it to someone who has seen a good handful of Hitchcock films, or else it might put you off on him. But it is a film that’s made more interesting by its context. I actually don’t think Melancholia is better in context, but I think the film became overshadowed by von Trier’s comments about relating to Hitler and getting supposedly kicked out of Cannes. And didn't he make a t-shirt that said like… persona non grata on it?

Sennah: Yes lmao. He also added a persona non grata stamp to his own promo poster for Melancholia.

Ooh, one last thing I want to touch on: mommy issues. Marnie and her mom rattled me especially. Marnie asking her if she likes her hair, all that, I think I found it melodramatic the first time, but then it was just devastating this time.

Gabrielle: I love that scene. I don’t know what Hitchcock’s relationship with his mother was like, but he had a life-long phobia of eggs, which seems… mother-related lol. We always want to think it's daddy issues for BPD girls like Marnie, but moms can cause just as much trauma.

Sennah: Definitely! And even though the mothers aren’t in either of these films for long, you can really feel their weight.

Gabrielle: Hitchcock was interested in psychoanalysis, but his interpretation of it is so literal: whenever Marnie sees the colour red, she’s triggered by a repressed memory and becomes overwhelmed. He did something similar in Spellbound, where parallel lines remind the protagonist of a repressed ski accident. Neither of these films waste too much time on subtlety, which is something I appreciate. 

Sennah: Same. And I feel like when things are written off as cliche, often it seems lazy or corny, but lately I’m more interested in how cliches exist because they’re just so earnest and universal.

Gabrielle: Totally. I also thought both films had this sort of idea of like, crazy pussy is the best pussy. There are some things so sexually compelling about a hot girl who's crazy.

Sennah: And well, Michael (Alexander Skarsgård) in Melancholia is never going to know. She's just going to leave him in the bedroom with his pants pulled down.

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