Let us get it over with right away. The end of Lars von Trier's film 'Melancholia'. Everybody dies. Not just the guests at the grand wedding held in the first part of the film at an ever-so-romantic castle surrounded by a golf course. And not just all life on Earth. For in the world evoked by the Danish film maker this time, we are absolutely alone in the universe. So what ends in our planet's cosmic embrace with the ten times bigger planet, Melancholia, is life as such and our recollection of it.
No ending could be more final. And, as Trier remarks with a black humour germane to him:
»In a way, the film does have a happy ending.«
