Melancholia is a film that could only come from the devious and perhaps insane mind of Lars Von Trier. The director shows his hand quite early on, opening the film with one of the most unpleasant cinematic wedding receptions in recent memory. Throughout this prolonged sequence the audience watches in horror as the simmering mental illness of Melancholia's main character Justine (Kirsten Dunst) rises to the surface. Her mood during the party is erratic and somewhat insufferable, bouncing between deep depression and manic silliness. In one scene, after previously rejecting the advances from her hunky new husband (Alexander Skarsgård), she even finds a coworker outside of the party and impulsively has sex with him. Like the rest of Melancholia, the film's wedding reception scene goes to show how the murky depths of the human mind are often unknowable and disturbing. It also acts as a rebuttal to the cinematic and idealized portrait of a wedding, where the act is a magical cure for all that ails the characters.