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Antichrist

John Doe says in "Se7en": "Wanting people to pay attention, you can't just tap them on the shoulder. You have to hit them in the head with a sledgehammer." L. von Trier was tapping on the shoulder with "Dogville". He turns to a sledgehammer with "Antichrist". The problem is that when you have been hit by the extremities of his latest endeavor the most appropriate question you may want to ask seems to be suggested by the next line of the late detective Mills: "What makes you so special that people should pay attention?" This movie doesn't strike as an overt emotional manipulation like "Dancer in the Dark" (the fact that the latter is really something that can be described in such a way was eventually admitted even by the director himself). The cinematography is stunning - in a good sense of the word. Several frames with Willem Dafoe's face will certainly enter the gallery of iconic images provided by modern cinema. Even the dedication to Tarkovsky was not vain. But von Trier is neither stupid/ talentless nor childish/egocentric - hopefully, at least - to the extent to actually consider making movies a kind of therapy, and the screening room his own private couch at a shrink's. So he is trying to bring in a meaning here after all. If so what is it? What is that point he is trying to deliver? Human nature is far from being perfect? It's hardly new news. The aesthetic audacity and harshness of images in "Dogville" were fully justified by a consistency of its message, which they conveyed in a completely adequate way. As far as I can see, von Trier was talking then about the unbearable hypocrisy of our modern civilization and an inevitable catastrophe this civilization is heading for (while his account made I'm afraid a pretty accurate description of the actual situation). What does he have to add with this feature? Is it that all evil which falls upon people is intrinsically immanent in human nature? Having experienced or witnessed a critical amount of grief, pain and despair man comes to some point when even a concept of good, God, hope or whatever you call it is becoming virtually inconceivable? And after that chaos reigns? That to fight that man has to kill an evil in himself which he might love? But this fight is doomed anyway if a natural arena for it happens to be a world "issued by Satan"? It's a kindergarten philosophy. Some of these things may very well be true and correct, but to make all these daring assumptions and observations it's quite sufficient to have read a dozen of books or had just one good look around. There can be several more interpretations - some somewhat less coherent, some even more banal. What are justifications of all this excruciating imagery we encounter in "Antichrist" then? It's not quite clear. So I should say that it is a bit surprising that the audience has happened to be so polarized. In fact, this movie is neither too good, nor too bad. And I might be missing something but I have a strong feeling that von Trier can be quite justly accused on this particular occasion of doing something he was quite wrongly accused of doing on some previous ones - of trying to compensate in a badly provocative manner a certain shallowness of his work and its half-baked message by the extremities of the way in which they are presented.

Within a complex tapestry of theology and symbolism Lars Von Trier's Antichrist plums the depths of the human condition taking cinema to places it has never gone nor ever wanted to go before. Following the establishing tragic accident (their son falls out of a window while they make love) He and She journey out to Eden, a remote lodge in the woods, for therapy where their lives and souls are changed forever. Far from a traditional horror film LVT gives us the darkest of psychological works that starts with shock before travelling down the spiral through grief, despair and panic ending in travesty. Gainsbourg and Defoe take us there, they carry the film on their monumental performances - Gainsbourg gives everything physically and emotionally to her role, while Defoe's character's grip on intellectualism is unrelenting. With death and depression permeating every frame of the film it has to be said that much of what is seen is stunningly beautiful - i really cant overstate the quality of the cinematography; at the same time the hauntingly evocative sound design adds that much needed 3rd dimension of pure evil that finishes off the work perfectly. It says and shows many disgusting things about humanity, but does so with such purity of vision, such artistic conviction that i found it totally irresistible. Not a film i'd want to see again in a hurry but certainly one i'm thankful i've experienced - it pushes the envelope in hitherto unforeseen ways that will probably affect film as a medium for years to come. If nothing else, i hope it helped LVT's recovery.

Lars Von Trier is a twisted and somewhat intriguing person. And i must say that he really hit it out of the park this time. This movie is amazing. It has a simple and very heartfelt storyline about a couple that loses their child. The wife falls into the dark of depression and her husband, a therapist, tries to cure her by figuring out what her fear is. To do this they hike up to "Eden", a cabin the have. And nature takes it course. In this movie LVT really explores the sick and twisted minds of people. Both on screen and in the audience. After the terrible "The Boss Of It All" he finally makes his comeback by returning to one of his older subjects: The suffering woman. The audience is not pleased, and yet, i do think they are. I know i were. Cause in this movie he put his finger in something that everybody shares: fear and sex. Somehow... A perversion. Cause everyone is somewhat perverted. This is the most spectacular piece of art i have ever seen on a screen in these modern days. It has all the emotion and beauty in the world, and will be stuck in my mind, many years from now. All hail Lars, "the greatest director in the world" (Of course he was being ironic. I mean please, he's danish)

I have seen a lot of movies in my days and although Quentin Tarrantinos Deathproof was probably the worst I think we got ourselves a new winner (loser) here. Where as Deathproof was mind-numbingly boring movie that made you wonder why you just wasted 120 minutes of your life this movie reminds me of an art gallery I once saw. Some "artist" had put a toilet seat on a stand and claimed that this is "art" where as in fact it was nothing but a toilet seat. This movie is that toilet seat. It probably claims by the "artist" who made it to be "art" but it is in fact just plain trash. Now where should I begin. Well why not with the title. This movie has very little to do with Antichrist, at least not what it is generally known for but maybe the "artist" has his own definition of that word as well. It has some loose connections to Christianity during medieval times and burning of witches but other than that the title has nothing else to do with the movie. The movie is basically about a man and women who's child jumps/trips out of the window while the couple are having sex. That is the opening scene and the only part of this movie worth watching (because of the music and choreography). The rest of the movie is about the couple dealing with the grief. Now some people seem to have interpreted the fact that the female in the movie acts much more irrational and emotional than the man who is calm and rational. However this women is in no way a normal women. She is a crazy psychopath who, before the child dies, severely abused him because she was under some kind of psychopathic delusion that "he is leaving him". She also watched while the kid climbed and tripped out of the window. Why? Who knows, because she was having an * at the time and did not want to interrupt it? I can't say because this movie is one big mess created by a disillusioned who thinks he is creating a piece of art where in fact he created a piece of turd and calls it art. It is just a terrible, awful movie that is not frightening, inspiring, exciting or anything else that you could positively say about a movie.

After all the hype I heard surrounding Antichrist, I finally decided to sit down and watch it. Wow. This has to be the most disturbing film I've seen since Human Centipede. Granted, the cinematography was very good, but the overall movie is just atrocious! Starting off with a slo-mo sex scene which leaves little to the imagination, the film goes downhill from there. After their kid falls out of a window to his death, the couple head off to their cabin in the woods to grieve. What follows is copious amounts of dialogue mixed with some of the most cringe inducing scenes that anyone has ever witnessed. There is no redeeming value to this film, and I am shocked at the awards it garnered. Some scenes were almost enough to make me want to turn the DVD off. Despite being broken up into "Chapters" - the film has no real flow. It felt like it was 20 minutes at a time of the two leads talking, followed by what in my opinion is torture * that would be enough for most people to walk out of the film. Some of the more nasty highlights would include: Sex scenes which include shots of full on penetration. A scene where Gainsbourg is lying naked in the forest masturbating, until Dafoe arrives on scene and starts to have sex with her while arms emerge from the tree stump they lie on. An especially nasty scene where she smashes his testicles with a log and then masturbates him until he ejaculates blood. The follow on to that bit where she drills a hole in his leg, sticks her finger in the wound and then bolts a weight to his leg. And who can forget the infamous scene near the end where she slides a pair of scissors into her * and removes her clitoris. If this is considered art, then cinema is on a downhill slide. This film is not for the squeamish, and I cannot recommend the title to anyone. Avoid at all costs.