Asterisk This

THORSEN. Is longing the most prominent feature of melancholia?

VON TRIER. I think the words rhyme well. A melancholic longing must be as emotional as it can get. It evokes the image of wolves howling at the moon.

THORSEN. What do the wolves howl, “Come and get me”?

VON TRIER. Yes, for I must belong somewhere. [He laughs.] It’s also why Justine is howling at that planet: Come and get me. And I’ll be damned if it doesn’t. And it devours her. And it was very poignant that it should not just be a collision between two planets, but that Melancholia should devour the Earth.

THORSEN. Is that her longing: to be devoured?

VON TRIER. Yes. [He laughs.] So it is a happy end, after all.

Lars von Trier, “Longing for the End of All”