Antichrist- *** out of *****
Antichrist is the movie that raped Cannes in the face.
Some critics applauded it, most booed and were disgusted by it. It's the latest film by Lars von Trier, who's made a career out of making pretentious, awful films…in my opinion anyway.
Some people love him, but I've disliked every single movie of his I've seen. Antichrist shouldn't be different, but somehow it is. Willam DaFoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg play a couple who are having sex (the second shot of a movie is a peen sliding into a vag…not kidding) while their young son falls out of a window and dies. It's a beautifully shot prologue, all done in black and white and scored to opera music. Then the movie starts in earnest.
DaFoe, a therapist, arrogantly believes he can work Gainsbourg through her grief and gets her to admit being afraid of the woods (yeah…I didn't quite get it either). So he takes her to a secluded cabin called Eden (the first of many Biblical references), and refuses her sex since therapists shouldn't have sex with their patients. Once there, nature turns on them…attacking them physically and mentally, until they turn against each other in progressively brutal (and sexual) ways. The end.
Um. Yeah. There's no real plot, just a lot of haunting images, perversion, symbolism (female as nature/fall of man), and a little gut-wrenching violence for good measure. Gainsbourg at one point drills a hole through DaFoe's leg and bolts a giant weight to it. And that's not the worst thing she does to him…or herself.
Every article out of Cannes made sure to mention one particular scene…I'm not going to ruin it (I will if asked nicely), but if you DO decide to see this movie, prepare yourself once the scissors come out. I hope you really like both DaFoe and Gainsbourg, because you're going to see pretty much every inch of them. The sex is even more graphic than the violence: Gainsbourg has a masturbation scene that's basically porn, and the next "masturbation" scene is even worse...
What does work are the themes and imagery. I like the idea of exploring the male ego through one therapist ignoring his training to treat his own wife. Von Trier is no stranger to misogyny (just watch Breaking the Waves…I can't quite figure out if von Trier is a misogynist, or just obsessed with exploring it), and it's on full display here.
His dips into nature and religion are compelling too. There are several fantasy images, like white figures moving through the woods, or gnarled tree roots with women's arms draped across them (this scene is duplicated in the movie poster, sans DaFoe's ass). The shots are beautiful, but just when you get into it, von Trier finds a way to yank you back out. There are LONG scenes of silly, pretentious dialogue, and laughable things like talking foxes (CHAOS REIGNS!).
By the second half, when the weird brutality kicks in, I began to wonder if von Trier wasn't just fucking with the audience, seeing how far he could push his own indulgence. His deadpan "performance" at Cannes looks that way, declaring himself the greatest director in the world and scoffing at the critics.
Personally, I watched it more as an experimental tone-poem than a movie…a weird cross between Koyanisqaatsi and the Marquis de Sade. I didn't like it, but I didn't hate it. I took the brutality in stride because I didn't believe it…it's too ridiculous to really believe, and seemed more symbolic than anything. But I feel I have to give him credit for going there. I may never watch it again, or I may later decide it's brilliant in its own sick way...but it's given me more to think about than most movies ever do. In a way, that's something…
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