Melancholia

Impressions before seeing it
Lars von Trier has made some unique (if morbid) films, and a wedding before doomsday sounded interesting. To me, pre-apocalyptic is a richer concept than post-apocalyptic, and the latter is done more often than the former.

How was it?
In some ways, I feel like Melancholia is the film that The Tree of Life should have been, or wanted to be. The indulgent artiness is kept to a much more tolerable minimum and is actually relevant, and all of the handheld footage documenting the characters' lives has more of a narrative to it. It's not trying to be poetic and elusive, it just lets us feel for these people as they struggle with whether or not they're about to come to a cataclysmic end.

And they most definitely are. That's not a spoiler, because we see it happening in the film's opening montage. There's a reason von Trier wanted us to know that at the beginning of the movie, but that reason actually is a spoiler so I won't go there except to say that I loved the implied reveal of it. I really enjoyed this movie in spite of it being anti-climactically climactic. What I mean is, unlike a film like Don McKellar's Last Night, which is more centered on people trying to prepare for the end by doing everything they've always wanted to do, Melancholia is mostly about sulking over the possibility that it will happen. There's not a whole lot of rushing around to cross off bucket lists, which is interesting in its own concept and that's why Last Night exists, but I think the inaction here represents the mediocrity of daily life and the laziness of human spirit, even in the face of oblivion. I'm not saying that's what everyone would do in that situation, and I don't think von Trier is either, but it may be a somewhat more grounded approach to the event than McKellar's film (which is not a bad movie, if I recall.) And for anyone who claims that Kirsten Dunst can't act, this movie should shut them up.

Recommendation
Personally I think this movie should have been nominated at the Oscars over The Tree of Life, but because of an unfortunate comment made by Lars von Trier in an interview, the media jumped all over a chance for negative press and the Academy shunned the entire movie. Not really fair to everyone else who worked on it. Anyway, I think it's a fascinating film, and if you find it too depressing then couple it with Last Night, the more positive version of this movie.