Antichrist
Charlotte Gainsbourg in the controversial Antichrist
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Monday, 20, Jul 2009 04:13
Directed by Lars von Trier, out July 24th in cinemas, starring Willem Dafoe, Charlotte Gainsbourg, running time 104 mins.
In a nutshell.
A dull, insulting and depressing experience.
What's it all about?
After a tragic accidental death, a grieving couple retreat to Eden, their forest cabin, in order to repair their fractured marriage. But with evil and nature at large in the woods, things go from bad to worse...
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Who's in it?
Willem Dafoe, best known for Platoon, Spider-Man and Once Upon a Time in Mexico, reunites with Dogme 95 pioneer Lars von Trier having starred in his 2005 effort Manderlay. Actress and singer-songwriter Charlotte Gainsbourg, daughter of French musician Serge Gainsbourg and English actress Jane Birkin, won the best actress prize at the 2009 Cannes film festival for her role in Antichrist.
As an example...
"Nothing hurts more than to see the one that you love subjected to mistakes and wrongs. No therapist can know as much about me as you." - He
"Nature is Satan's church." - She
Likelihood of a trip to the Oscars
After fiercely splitting critics and provoking boos and walk-outs at Cannes - to which Von Trier retorted by claiming he was the best director alive - recognition at the major ceremonies is hugely unlikely.
What the others say
"Given how desperate to shock the film is, it's surprising that long swathes of it are so turgidly dull." - Wendy Ide, Times
"This is cinema at its most extreme and mind-boggling." - Sukhdev Sandhu, Daily Telegraph
So is it any good?
Accusations of misogyny, audience outrage and a film as aesthetically beautiful as it is troubling - these should not surprise or shock from a Lars von Trier film. He's courted controversy throughout his unquestionably daring career and made the punishment of a female protagonist a central, unsettling theme repeatedly. What's unexpected and depressing from a viewing of Antichrist - rather than the gruesome violence that provoked walk-outs at Cannes - is the extent to which the film seems to stick a middle finger up to its audience through papering over its threadbare plot and laughable profundity with that same extreme imagery.
The impact of the violence - with Dafoe enduring a Christ-like bolt through the leg and a Gainsbourg churning your stomach with genital self-mutilation - has not been lessened through news filtering through of its reception at Cannes and these are some of the most provocative scenes in modern cinema. Or would be, if they hadn't been so cynically injected into this deathly dull film. While it's not a film for the faint-hearted, most adult cinemagoers can take a bit of ultra-violence if it's relevant to the plot - the Saw franchise has taught us that much. With Antichrist, it's not the extremities that are to be endured but the mere experience itself. This is a dull, hateful and meaningless film, with no focus of idea, no control of direction and a skeletal plot; it's only noteworthy as an experience through its faintly pathetic attempt to shock through violence.
This is not the reaction of a critic unable to appreciate the beauty of the super-slow motion opening, soundtracked by Handel and featuring, almost consecutively, penetrative sex and the death of an infant. These are not the concerns of a viewer unable to recognise an outstanding performance from Gainsbourg, clearly pushed to breaking point and responding with terrifying, primal feminine rage.
No, this is the response of an audience member unhappy with being treated with utter contempt by a filmmaker. It's hard enough to ingratiate oneself into a film when the director has claimed the film is his "most important" but freely admitted scenes were added "for no reason". It's even more difficult to enjoy committed turns from talented leads burdened with self-absorbed, theatrically analytical characters and a lazy script seemingly polished off in an afternoon.
And when Von Trier all but says "f**k you" to the viewer by abandoning an initially gripping depiction of grief in favour for some torture porn and a talking fox, the walk-outs in the south of France make sense. Sure, the extreme close up of Gainsbourg's X-rated amputation is hard to stomach but not as much as a talented filmmaker letting acclaim go to his head and instructing the viewer that, whatever we might think, he is better and smarter than us, and doesn't need to pander to our selfish desire for rhyme and reason in a film.
But however much Von Trier might like to play with convention, it's still a horror set in a log cabin in the woods, only one which fails to entertain, challenge or instruct. This is a mish-mash of ideas about grief and femininity shrouded in a lame attempt to shock. You're willing for the end out of boredom and anger.
2/10
Lewis Bazley