Antichrist - 2009

Pretensious, boring, gratuitous, graphic, intense, unbearable, pointless, indulgent, self obsessed. These are just some of the words that can be used to describe Lars von Trier's latest cinematic "masterpiece". Possibly the most controversial film of the year, I went to see it half expecting to like it; I've always responded to challenging, provoking cinema, but also wanting to see it so I could join the debate. Unfortunately there isn't really much more than can be added. The film was poorly received in Cannes, has received hostile reviews in the UK, even politician Ann Widdecombe has voiced her opinion slaming the film as pornography, which is completely off the mark.

The opening seqeunce is a lush black and white shot prologue, scored to Handel, which is appreciable purely for the cinematogpraphy. What undermines it is that its shot entirely in slow motion, and contains an unnecessary penetration shot. As He (Willem Dafoe) and She (Charlotte Gainsbourg) engage in one of the most banal sex scenes commited to screen, there child manages to navigate his way out of his cot, out of the child gate on the door before pushing a chair up to an open window and jumping out. The film effectively uses some montage, but this about the best thing you can say about it. So as you can imagine, the film doesn't do much to endear its audience to the film, and from hear things generally get worse.

Thankfully though Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe are both excellent as the sole characters on screen. Without them this film would be unbearably dull, which to a degree it already is. Which is really the main problem. Up to now most of the reviews have focussed on the violence, which I will come to later, but a more pertinent point is that this film is so dull, and slow, and utterly pointless. What could and should have been an insightful and provocative exploration the loss and tragedy of a childs death, becomes indulgent to the point of banality. For a director who recently described himself as the greatest living filmmaker, its unclear from Antichrist if he wasn't actually saying it with tongue wedged firmly in his cheek.

The film continues its obsession with slow motion scenes, which just stand to make the film even more unbearable. The dialogue and themes explored are done so in that pretensious way only art film seem to able to accomplish. He is a therapist and as She seems to be failing to come to terms with their loss, decides he must coach her through the several stages of mourning. Taking her away to a cabin in the forest, ridiculously entitled Eden, the film includes it prerequisite shots of branches, leaves and grass blowing in the wind.

She descends further and further into insanity, and its important to mention that Gainbourg is phenomenal, plunging the depths, and putting herself through turmoil, eventually exhibiting a primal, feral nature as the film draws to its close. I might even be inclined to say the film is worth seeing for her performance, but that might be stretch too far.

The film follows thematically von Trier's earlier classics Dogville and Dancer in the Dark in subjecting its female protagonist to severe punishment. However, here the punishment is mainly psychological and emotional, She also exacts some form of revenge on her arogant, husband, and the physical punishment arrives courtesey of self multilation.

von Trier is one of those filmmakers who has spent his career courting controversy as if it is his objective and purpose as a filmmaker, and for this he should be commended, but Antichrist fails so monumentally as it feels as though he hasn't fully developed his idea. Supposedly written during a recent bout of depression, the film could be seen as catharsis, but against what. Ideas which seems intriguing, including a hint that Gainsbourg insanity may have existed long before the childs death, are never really explored, and by the end the film feels so preposterous, I began to believe von Trier didn't want his audience to enjoy, or even appreciate the film.

There is so much more that could be said about Antichrist, and I suppose, the very fact that it has provoked such heated debate is commendable. From the talking fox, which is less jarring than it seems, to nature invading the cabin, as fox, deer and crow settle down together to watch the denouement, to the violence. The film is a patchwork of controversial concepts and ideas, none of which survive close examination. Of the violence, its hard to talk around, so from the rampant sex, full frontal nudity, She crushing He's penis, then masterbating to the ejaculation of blood, sawing a hole through his leg and attaching a weight, to the final vaginal multilation, the violence attempts to seem relevant and thematic, gynocide is crowbarred into the narrative to give the violence the notion of relevance and significance. In fact I think the main reason the film has received such vitriolic comments is because the story is so poorly concieved that the violence becomes jarring and gratuitous. Having said I can think of no reason why a graphic shot of cutting your own clitoris off would be narratively necessary.

So von Trier is the worlds greatest filmmaker is he? No, he is not. He has gone too far in the art cinema and been consumed by pretensious delusions of grandeur, as if anything he conceived and shot would automatically be sublime, merely for its existence. For this reason von Trier has fallen into the category of a lot of modern art.