A certainty that von Trier loathes therapists. This is a film best viewed with reason switched off.Ī troubling but refreshing sense of an artist uncloaked. Yet there are moments that defy any clear reading.
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At some points it feels deeply feminist, at others deeply misogynistic, although the overriding feeling is of sympathy for the wife and antipathy for the husband – plus pessimism about humans in general. The results are so hysterical that what we witness feels most like a piercing primal scream from within von Trier. The forest turns on the couple, while the couple turn on each other. The forest, the cabin, the animals (including a ridiculous talking fox) are familiar horror symbols, but the gender war is pure von Trier.
It’s best to read this as an invitation to a parallel world – a psychological one – as they travel to a metaphorical cabin in the woods. The film moves beyond realism when Dafoe asks his wife to imagine ‘Eden’. Nor is there any doubting von Trier’s attitude to Defoe’s trade: he thinks it’s a sham. But there’s no doubting the power of Gainsbourg’s performance, nor von Trier’s sympathy for her, as Dafoe insists on dragging his wife through therapy. Some of these early entirely domestic scenes, although piercing in their sadness, drag a little, especially as some of the dialogue feels false. The mood is claustrophobic as we’re stranded with this couple in despair. Grief overcomes Gainsbourg, while Dafoe tries not to mix business and pleasure by treating his wife as both patient and lover. This initial slickness will surprise those familiar with von Trier’s down-and-dirty style, although much of the rest of the film is a more earthy mix of greens, browns and blues. The opening, black-and-white prologue is a thing of shallow beauty as we watch this pair make love (with a thrusting shot) as their child falls from a window. ) an academic – who retreat into a forest called Eden to work through their grief after the death of their son. On the surface, ‘Antichrist’ is a horror movie about a married American couple – he ( No surprise, then, that the study of grief in ‘Antichrist’ is quiet and sensitive, while some of the telling is loud and grandstanding. He’s the reticent artist who thrives at Cannes press conferences. In person, von Trier displays paradoxes that spill over into his work. He likes to shock, and there are moments in ‘Antichrist’ – not least two featuring genital mutilation – that threaten to mask the film’s serious side. Discomfort, too, is a well-used weapon in his armoury. He’s interested in how we, as an audience, process these ideas and the emotions they provoke. He’s interested in how power emerges, persists and perverts. He’s interested in the control of women by men.
Yet once he finds a new theatre for his stories – whether it’s the musical (‘Dancer in the Dark’), the Brechtian morality play (‘Dogville’, ‘Manderlay’) or, as here, the horror movie – familiar ideas come bubbling to the surface. Von Trier never makes the same film twice. Its provocations repel, while its honesty attracts. It pulls you this way and that and convinces you of different versions of the truth. The film is equivalent to witnessing a wild fight between strangers. ’s ‘Antichrist’ twice now and experienced such wildly different reactions to it each time that you might want to consider this review as written in sand, not stone. Click here to read our interview with director Lars Von Trier
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