von Trier never saw a Zags game

While sitting here watching the Battle in Seattle , which has the Gonzaga men’s basketball team in Seattle to play Washington, I’m still reeling — so to speak — from last night’s screening of “Melancholia.”

The screening took place at the Magic Lantern. And the film in question is the latest from Lars von Trier, the Danish master of Dogma cinema and creator of such mind-bending movies as “The Kingdom,” “Dogville,” “Dancer in the Dark” and “Antichrist.” “Melancholia” is a mind-bender, too, though in a slightly different way than many of von Trier’s other films.

Oh, the questioning is there. The exploration on one hand of issues such as love and loyalty and family relations and, on the other, of larger concerns such as the very meaning of life. But while iTerence Malick, in his masterful examination of the same question titled “The Tree of Life,” came to to a mostly posivite resolution, von Trier has crafted a film that — in the words of my wife — is the depressoid’s fantsay.

And what I mean by that — to the extent that I risk offering up a spoiler — is that the main character, a young woman battling what seems to be a crippling sense of depression, ends up being justified in her dooms-day predictions. Spectacularly justified, I have to say.

Not that what von Trier gives us isn’t watchable. Save the opening sequence, a slo-mo preview of sequences to come that rivals Malick’s predilection for dinosaurs, “Melancholia” is a watchable devling into — well, the mother of all bad moods.

Ah, well, the Zags are up 26-10. That’s a pretty good antidote for any emotional hangover.