Notorious Danish director Lars von Trier‘s apocalyptic drama Melancholia‘s 2011 release was somewhat overshadowed by the controversy surrounding his comments at the Cannes festival press conference for the film in which he expressed various (idiotic) thoughts, including ‘What can I say? I understand Hitler, but I think he did some wrong things, yes, absolutely. … He’s not what you would call a good guy, but I understand much about him, and I sympathise with him a little bit.’ This and various other comments saw the director being declared ‘persona non grata’ by the festival’s directors in an unprecedented move. Von Trier apologised for his remarks hours later and even held a press conference in Danish, but the damage was done.

Arguably the director’s most accessible film, certainly when compared to his earlier Dogme 95 features and 2009’s Antichrist, Melancholia opens with a stunning CGI sequence showing the destruction of Earth as the titular planet smashes straight into it. Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and Justine (Kirsten Dunst) are sisters dealing with different forms of anxiety and depression during the latter’s wedding reception taking place on the family estate. Justine is shown to be almost catatonic with depression whilst Claire is dealing with her fears over a large blue planet which is revealed to be on a collision course with Earth. The film is split into two sections and follows the way each woman deals with the impending destruction and their relationships with the people around them.

According to this interview article with the director, ‘the idea for the film emerged while he was in treatment for the depression that has haunted him in recent years. A therapist told him a theory that depressives and melancholics act more calmly in violent situations, while “ordinary, happy” people are more apt to panic. Melancholics are ready for it. They already know everything is going to hell.’

This is the ‘static lightning’ style American one sheet for the film that, like the ‘water‘ style is pretty much a still shot from the film (with likely some minor adjustments). It was designed by the Los Angeles-based company Gravillis inc. who are responsible for some of my favourite recent one sheets, including Monsters and I Saw the Devil. IMPAwards features a gallery of a lot of their work. Melancholia was also given a set of teaser posters that can be seen on IMPAwards and features, bizarrely, a Lars von Trier version!

Notorious Danish director Lars von Trier‘s apocalyptic drama Melancholia‘s 2011 release was somewhat overshadowed by the controversy surrounding his comments at the Cannes festival press conference for the film in which he expressed various (idiotic) thoughts, including ‘What can I say? I understand Hitler, but I think he did some wrong things, yes, absolutely. … He’s not what you would call a good guy, but I understand much about him, and I sympathise with him a little bit.’ This and various other comments saw the director being declared ‘persona non grata’ by the festival’s directors in an unprecedented move. Von Trier apologised for his remarks hours later and even held a press conference in Danish, but the damage was done.

Arguably the director’s most accessible film, certainly when compared to his earlier Dogme 95 features and 2009’s Antichrist, Melancholia opens with a stunning CGI sequence showing the destruction of Earth as the titular planet smashes straight into it. Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and Justine (Kirsten Dunst) are sisters dealing with different forms of anxiety and depression during the latter’s wedding reception taking place on the family estate. Justine is shown to be almost catatonic with depression whilst Claire is dealing with her fears over a large blue planet which is revealed to be on a collision course with Earth. The film is split into two sections and follows the way each woman deals with the impending destruction and their relationships with the people around them.

According to this interview article with the director, ‘the idea for the film emerged while he was in treatment for the depression that has haunted him in recent years. A therapist told him a theory that depressives and melancholics act more calmly in violent situations, while “ordinary, happy” people are more apt to panic. Melancholics are ready for it. They already know everything is going to hell.’

This is the ‘water’ style American one sheet for the film that, like the ‘lightning‘ style is pretty much a still shot from the film (with likely some minor adjustments). It was designed by the Los Angeles-based company Gravillis inc. who are responsible for some of my favourite recent one sheets, including Monsters and I Saw the Devil. IMPAwards features a gallery of a lot of their work. Melancholia was also given a set of teaser posters that can be seen on IMPAwards and features, bizarrely, a Lars von Trier version!

Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu’s 21 Grams is the second film in his so-called ‘Trilogy of Death’, following on from his breakout debut hit Amores Perros (2000), with Babel completing the trilogy in 2005. Like the first film, 21 Grams features three main characters and plot lines that interweave around a fatal car accident and its consequences. Sean Penn plays Paul Rivers, a mathematics professor who is close to death from heart failure after years of smoking and abusing his body, and his wife Mary (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is desperate to conceive a child before he dies. Benicio Del Toro plays Jack Jordan, a reformed criminal who has spent many years in jail and is now trying to go straight by helping out at church and counselling kids who are on a similar path that he took. Naomi Watts plays Cristina Peck, a former drug addict who has settled down into suburban life with husband Michael (Danny Huston) and two daughters.

One fateful day, Jack accidentally hits Michael and the kids with his car, putting Michael into a coma and killing the daughters instantly. A grief-stricken Cristina returns to her drug-taking past but not before agreeing to have her husband’s organs donated. Jack is given Michael’s heart and eventually decides to track down the donor with the aid of a private detective. The rest of the film deals with the encounters between the characters. The title refers to the early 20th-century research of an American doctor called Duncan MacDougall who attempted to prove the existence of the human soul by recording a small loss of weight immediately after death. His methods detected varying amounts but 21 grams, or three quarters of an ounce, was the first recorded instance. The original marketing campaign compared this weight to a ‘stack of nickels’, a chocolate bar and a hummingbird and this explains why the creature appears on this poster.

The film was very well critically received and was a success with worldwide audiences, although today it’s IMDb rating doesn’t quite match that of the first film in the trilogy. This poster design is unique to the Japanese marketing campaign.