Lars von Trier's "Melancholia" As Manitou

And the Wikiup as a symbol for the Holy...

I used a still from the film Melancholia, and it reminded me of how powerful the film was to me.
Consider the following review:

http://prestigiousopinions.wordpress.com/2012/04/18/hateful-fantasy-a-review-of-melancholia/

...Von Trier’s statement that Melancholia is the first of his films with a happy ending further reveals the whole film as a cruel trick on the audience: couched in the language of what is considered “serious film” today is a fantasy as romantic to its maker as a vampire drama to teenage girls. I can just imagine Lars smirking up a storm in the dark while critics ooh and aah over this emptiness.

 I saw the final scene, depicted above, as a spiritual transformation; the stick structure strikes me as a naked wikiup, and its perimeter defines a sacred area wherein people find their last refuge.
(When I first saw the film, I saw a wikiup with 3 sticks, obviously a trinity. A wikiup is usually covered by mats of brush or foliage; a naked wikiup is a metaphor for bare Faith, the covered wikiup is establishment religion under which we may still discern the original "sticks" of inspiration.)

Von Trier finds his happy ending in this structure of meaning beyond death.

I can see why people who are obsessed by material things would find it a cruel hoax.

This is the Age of Cruel Hoaxes. It is good to see memories of the Great Spirit.
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