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Antichrist (2009)

Dir: Lars von Trier

After the accidental death of their little boy a grieving couple try to come to terms with their loss.
As the mother (Charlotte Gainsbourg) slowly unravels her psychiatrist Husband (Willem Dafoe) decides to make her his patient and tries in vain to get her to come to terms with her loss and to move out of the cloying shadow that is slowly consuming her.

When ‘He’ learns that his wife’s greatest fear at this moment comes from the woods where they have a holiday cabin, named ‘Eden’, the Husband decides to get her to face that fear by staying at the cabin.

It is here, in the dark woods, where both of them will face their fear and loss and where things will change forever in a most terrible way…..

 

Lars von Trier has perhaps his highest profile film to date...and proceeds to find it becomes the biggest millstone around his neck as far as many critics (and certainly mainstream press) go and soon hate and derision are flying.
But amazingly he (and the film) seem to have weathered the storm and come through the other side (with the help of some critics who went against the pack) into the calmer waters of virtual acceptance.
This is probably because despite the extreme content and controversial depiction of the female sex "Antichrist" is actually a pretty damn good movie that is exceptionally well crafted and is at the end of the day a serious work.

Is it perfect? No no.
There is stuff here that seems like padding and perhaps the film is too obscure and allegorical to fully satisfy as an essay on madness and loss that it could have been. But that would ultimately not have made it “Antichrist” I suppose. Certainly not Lars von Trier’s “Antichrist”.

But there is also much here to admire.
The heartbreaking 'prologue' is not only amazingly shot, scored and edited but is actually the hardest part of the film to watch, especially if you are a parent.
The fact we know what will happen and yet Lars makes this event take so long to occur ensures the sequence becomes something truly hard to sit through.
As it should be.

From here we have some top class performances by Willem Dafoe and especially Charlotte Gainsbourg as the nameless bereaved parents and at this juncture "Antichrist" becomes nothing more horrifying and corrupting as a very well essayed drama on the loss of a child.
But as we proceed to the cabin in the woods the film becomes the dark creature of tabloid hysteria. And at this point the film starts to falter in some ways too.

We know that much badness is coming and yet Lars spends too much time at this new chapter (literally, the movie is split into ‘prologue‘, ‘chapters‘ and ‘epilogue‘) going over things he has already covered in the previous chapter perfectly well.
Dafoe's character’s psychology exercises are now becoming repetitive and irritating for us, let alone the already unhinged Gainsbourg.
We need to move the story on here now, but Lars refuses and we start to get bogged down.

Eventually things start to move forward and into even darker terrain than the already grim wilderness we have been traversing up to this point.
Here we not only learn (along with Dafoe) some dark and shocking things about Gainsbourg even before the death of the child affected her, but we are introduced to the possibility (and it does remain a possibility until the end, even if an unlikely one) that there are malevolent forces at work in the woods.

As ’He’ learns more about the thesis his Wife was meant to be working on at the cabin the summer before (where only the Son was with her) he, and we, are lead to believe that Gainsbourg has come to a shocking conclusion about ‘Woman’ that may have took hold and dragged her to madness way before the accident. And here we have eggs and chickens. Was it the conclusion that twisted the mind, or was the mind already twisted and her conclusion just the revelation to her on why?

There is a brilliant sequence at this juncture when Dafoe discovers Gainsbourg’s unfinished thesis and accompanying research that brings in ancient beliefs, witchcraft and medieval attitudes, fears and hatreds of women and all scored to a suitably ominous soundscape.
But nothing is that clear in “Antichrist” and soon multiple possibilities for motivation and reason concerning Gainsbourg’s mental state and her past and present actions open up before us.
Luckily though these possibilities never get in the way of telling the basic story and each viewer can form an hypothesis based on clear, and some not so clear, facts that are revealed on exactly what is happening and why.
As such the film is never left unsatisfying as the many theories are all valid, all work for each viewer and all ultimately lead to the film‘s conclusion no matter what (unlike say Lynch’s masturbatory annoyances “Mullholland Dr.” and “Lost Highway” where the lack of any cohesion just feels like a cheat and a cop out to avoid actually having to think of any conclusion to the story) , thus we have a movie that never feels like a confused work or a cheat despite these diversions we are free to take as individuals to reach our ultimate destination.

The extremity here that caused so much fuss and even outright hate from some quarters (the UK tabloids especially - one such self-righteous prick appears in the DVD extras at a Cannes press conference) is actually a very small part of the film and takes a long time to appear (though we have had the odd unsettling moment, like the famous stillborn baby deer sequence) and it is a shame that so much of what went before these scenes has been lost in all the hype and vitriol.

What we have is explicit nudity wise for both Dafoe and Gainsbourg (although both a doubled for a couple of hardcore moments involving penetration and an erection that delivers a nasty, messy, surprise) and Gainsbourg has a strong, frenzied, masturbation scene.
Violence wise it has it’s tough moments but really it’s more the idea of what is happening than what we truly see.
Gore is kept at a minimum but it is the truly infamous scene near the end that repels but impresses with it‘s uncompromising audaciousness.
Involving a pair of scissors it is very brief but is as explicit as things could ever be. So be warned.
The effects are also very well done from a technical perspective which is essential in selling such moments and keeping the audience in the movie.

But amazingly none of this tough gore and violence ever seem gratuitous. Even the most infamous scene (as it is an act completely justified by the screenplay from every psychological angle you may choose to come at it from) never comes across as just there to shock. It does shock, but it does it in context and it does it in a serious, defined, justified way.
This is not “Ilsa”…this is not exploitation…this is not camp trash. Not that there is anything wrong with camp, trashy, exploitation it’s just that “Antichrist” isn’t it.

The film looks stunning (there are some truly amamzing and powerful images here), is well scored (with ominous electronic/choral rumbles and snippets of Handel), is extremely well acted, well directed and is ultimately a work to be taken very seriously.
Perhaps Lars’ self -indulgence and need to be just that bit too obscure smother some parts of the basic, effective drama that comes from such worrying, heartbreaking, events (you could easily make a straightforward drama about losing a child and insanity out of the basic plotline and story progression) almost as if the impressive visuals and shocking content (all of which are indeed effective) sometimes obscure the film that hosts them.
But ultimately I was impressed and moved by “Antichrist” and it failed to become the pretentious art house masturbation session I was fearing it would be before I sat down to watch it.
As such this tough, multi-layered, work comes highly recommended.