Apocalypse Then and Now: Verdens Undergang (1916) and Melancholia (2011)

What is it about?

The comparison of two films nearly one hundred years apart that both imagine astronomical collisions with Earth reveals a key problem in depicting the end of the world: from what vantage point can it be perceived, post-destruction?

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Why is it important?

Apocalyptic fiction has begun increasingly to work through the possibilities of a post-human future. These two films measure the shift in assumptions that makes Lars von Trier's fantasy of total annihilation—and its aftermath—possible.