A Couple of Notes on ANTICHRIST

I had intended to open this post with an image of Lars von Trier's head almost floating in the space of a giant gray screen. It was a real image that I had snapped from my camera while attending the Skyped press conference at the NYFF weeks ago (von Trier, as you know, doesn't fly so cross-Atlantic festival appearances are out of the question). While Von Trier gazed down impishly at the crowd from the screen that had just shown his latest firebomb Antichrist, my thoughts jumped to Shosanna's "Giant Face" in Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. It wouldn't have surprised me at all to find that the doors had been locked and von Trier was planning to burn down the theater. Figuratively! Though Lars is kind of a sick puppy, he's more of a prankster than a true nihilist.

...I lost that image and also lost my notes. Very ill the day of the screening, you see. Also missed random minutes of the movie thrice. Thus, no proper review and an indecisive grade. Maybe those of you who brave it this weekend can help me decide what to make of it.

"Eden" production design by Karl Júlíusson, art direction by Tim Pannen
and cinematography by Anthony Dod Mantle

In the movie Charlotte Gainsbourg as She and Willem Dafoe as He play doctor both figuratively and connotatively after the death of their only children. That is to say: He's a psychiatrist who decides to treat his own wife (taboo), they fuck (a lot), they fuck each other up even more (mentally at first but then...). "She" and "He" do all of this in a place called "Eden". Von Trier's giant face mentioned the title of this country home and shook his head at the heavy handedness. "Yeah, sorry about that" He told the crowd unprompted.

At some point in the press conference he asked if anyone had walked out of his movie, and seemed delighted when someone yelled out that they did in fact see someone leave. People, especially jaded critics, like the idea of people fleeing a movie. I like it too. It helps us feel superior to people who can't handle audacious cinema. But, um, that was me. I was just going to the bathroom. Thrice (didn't return to the same seat). It's not like I'd walk out of a von Trier picture. I love that Mad Dane.

Antichrist has a few of terrific moments, some decidedly vile ones and several arresting images. And, yes, those categories overlap as the couple descends further into violence (that already infamous scissor poster is not the half of it), psychotic breaks and demonic hallucinations in Eden, nature being "the church of satan" according to She. But in the end this psycho-horror film felt -- to sick me remember (I'm willing to try again) -- like a 45 minute story that kept repeating itself as the director dragged his actors sadistically through their grotesque marks. The praise for the twin performances seems excessive. Dafoe and Gainsbourg bravely render He and She, sure, but these aren't characters so much as blue puppets for the auteur. Not that every film needs full characterisations (this one didn't).


I suspect that von Trier is having a chuckle at all the “masterpiece” talk since the film often feels like an increasingly sick comic conversation he’s having with himself. The topic is his own perceived misogyny, recent confessed depression and general cinematic nihilism. Antichrist plays like a movie about von Trier for von Trier starring von Trier. Perhaps that's why my very favorite moment came first. I loved the loudly scored cut from the title card "LARS VON TRIER" to the title card "ANTICHRIST", both hand-scrawled in bold colorful colors. I'm not sure if the former is the latter, owns the latter or merely feels a special kinship but it was hilariously juxtaposed all the same.

update: Katey and I talk about the movie

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for previous takes on Antichrist (everyone will have an opinion and some guests have already weighed in) just click the label below