Summary: After the death of their child, psychotherapist Willem Dafoe takes his wife (Charlotte Gainsbourg) to a cabin in the woods to help her get over her grief.
I’m going to start where I would normally finish the review. Would I recommend people going to see this movie? Probably not. That is not to say that people should not see the movie, or that I wish I had not seen it. Indeed it is an excellently made movie and a huge success in that it perfectly accomplishes what the director set out to do: make as many people as horribly uncomfortable as possible and generate discussion. So I will say this: If that made you curious, then go see Antichrist. But it is crazy. Really.
Roz and I have been seeing a lot of movies lately, ranging from the supposedly ultra-violent Kick-Ass to trashier grindhouse fare like Switchblade Sisters and Chained Heat; movies we have been warned will shock or disturb us. If you have read my review of Kick-Ass you know how well that turned out and the other movies we have seen have fared no better. Because, really, once you’ve seen movies like Tokyo Gore Police and Neighbor you are pretty inured to further cinematic shock. So when the opportunity arose to see Antichrist – the “most controversial movie at Cannes” – we clearly had to go. If the artsy-fartsy audiences at the world’s most prestigious film festival were induced to walk out on the movie, surely it is worth a try? That said, I doubt many of those people have seen either of the aforementioned movies, so they are probably a bunch of pussies. Roz and I can take anything you throw at us. And for that hubris we were made to suffer.
Roz and I have been seeing a lot of movies lately, ranging from the supposedly ultra-violent Kick-Ass to trashier grindhouse fare like Switchblade Sisters and Chained Heat; movies we have been warned will shock or disturb us. If you have read my review of Kick-Ass you know how well that turned out and the other movies we have seen have fared no better. Because, really, once you’ve seen movies like Tokyo Gore Police and Neighbor you are pretty inured to further cinematic shock. So when the opportunity arose to see Antichrist – the “most controversial movie at Cannes” – we clearly had to go. If the artsy-fartsy audiences at the world’s most prestigious film festival were induced to walk out on the movie, surely it is worth a try? That said, I doubt many of those people have seen either of the aforementioned movies, so they are probably a bunch of pussies. Roz and I can take anything you throw at us. And for that hubris we were made to suffer.
MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD
We had both done our best to avoid any real knowledge of what was going to happen in the movie, or even what it was actually about – we wanted to be surprised, after all. There were not too many other people in the theatre, but I am guessing that most of them were probably feeling similarly to us, especially the three younger people in front of us.
The film is divided in to 4 chapters (“Grief”, “Pain (Chaos Reigns)”, “Despair (Gynocide)” and “The Three Beggars”) plus a prologue and epilogue. The prologue opens with gorgeous, soft black and white slow motion photography. Willem Dafoe (whose character is only credited as “He”) and Charlotte Gainsbourg (She) are making love in the shower. The scene is beautiful and silent and then von Trier cuts to a shot of unsimulated full penetration. At which point a quiet giggle spreads through the audience – this is the shocking cinema we have come to see. The rest of the scene continues without any more shocking elements, although the content is tragic. As He and She make love their toddler son escapes from his cradle, manages to get up to a window and falls to his death.
Which brings us to Chapter one. I will not go through the next bunch of chapters in any detail, because that would be pretty boring. Needless to say, when your kid dies because you were too busy with your orgasm to notice he was playing in the window, there is an element of guilt associated with that and She does not deal with it very well. Other than the couple seconds of unsimulated sex right at the beginning, the first three quarters of the movie are not particularly strange. It is a powerful, artsy drama about dealing with guilt and fear and what that does to a relationship. In his arrogance as a psychotherapist He decides to ignore common sense and ethics and treat his wife for her depression, eventually deciding to take her to their cabin in the woods to confront her debilitating fear of nature. And we all know that is going to go good places.
The movie is a little strange at this point, with weird shots of a deer giving birth to a dead fawn and a fox disemboweling itself before looking at He and saying “Chaos reigns”. She is using sex to distract herself from her pain, but starts to get weird about the entire thing and wants him to hurt her during intercourse. Some of those scenes can be pretty uncomfortable and the audience started reacting with uncomfortable laughter and fidgeting.
The previous summer She had gone to the cabin with their child to work on her thesis (called Gynocide, about the perception of women as “evil” throughout history) and that was when she first became afraid of the place. Now she is saying things like “Nature is Satan’s church”. Ominous. The movie manages to keep you on your toes the whole time and takes an interesting turn when She appears to be getting better and He starts to lose it a little. But still I found myself wondering why people would ever walk out of the movie. It was almost done and nothing too crazy had happened yet, so those people must just have weak stomachs. Then He reads the coroner’s report and the shit hits the fan.
Turns out she started going crazy the previous summer and tried to hobble their child by putting his boots on the wrong feet, causing slight deformities. When he realizes this She freaks out that he will leave her and starts attacking him, although this quickly turns to sex. The she crushes his nuts with a log, rendering him unconscious, and proceeds to continue masturbating him until he ejaculates blood. And then the movie gets crazy.
It is at this point that what was a tense psychological drama becomes a flat out horror movie, and a very good one at that. It is as though Lars von Trier saw Hostel and said “You think that’s fucked up? Let me show you kiddies how this is done”. I have seen some awful things happen to penises in movies, and really it is hard to imagine anything worse or more painful. Unless you are Lars von Trier. You know what I haven’t seen in a movie? A close-up of an actresses clitoris. You know what else I haven’t seen? A close-up of said clitoris being removed with rusty scissors. Yeah. What better way to show someone’s demented state than to have her circumcise herself with rusty scissors?
So, as it turns out, that is what it takes to shock Roz and me. One of the most interesting parts of the entire experience was watching the changes in the audience and ourselves throughout the course of the movie. At the beginning people are excited and curious, eating their popcorn and sitting up straight. But as the movie goes on people sink further and further into their seats and the sounds of snacking cease. By the final scenes you can actually feel the discomfort in the theatre and hear people squirming awkwardly and events play out onscreen. By the end of the movie everybody, including Roz and me, has sunk as far into their seats as they can and are huddled close to the people they are sitting with. As the theatre lights come back on there are no more sounds of merriment or excitement. People file out of the theatre in silence. Well, except for Roz and I. We cannot help but laugh out loud at our naivete and cockiness going in to this movie. “Shock us!”, we said. Congratulations, Mr. von Trier, you truly are a master provocateur.
The film is divided in to 4 chapters (“Grief”, “Pain (Chaos Reigns)”, “Despair (Gynocide)” and “The Three Beggars”) plus a prologue and epilogue. The prologue opens with gorgeous, soft black and white slow motion photography. Willem Dafoe (whose character is only credited as “He”) and Charlotte Gainsbourg (She) are making love in the shower. The scene is beautiful and silent and then von Trier cuts to a shot of unsimulated full penetration. At which point a quiet giggle spreads through the audience – this is the shocking cinema we have come to see. The rest of the scene continues without any more shocking elements, although the content is tragic. As He and She make love their toddler son escapes from his cradle, manages to get up to a window and falls to his death.
Which brings us to Chapter one. I will not go through the next bunch of chapters in any detail, because that would be pretty boring. Needless to say, when your kid dies because you were too busy with your orgasm to notice he was playing in the window, there is an element of guilt associated with that and She does not deal with it very well. Other than the couple seconds of unsimulated sex right at the beginning, the first three quarters of the movie are not particularly strange. It is a powerful, artsy drama about dealing with guilt and fear and what that does to a relationship. In his arrogance as a psychotherapist He decides to ignore common sense and ethics and treat his wife for her depression, eventually deciding to take her to their cabin in the woods to confront her debilitating fear of nature. And we all know that is going to go good places.
The movie is a little strange at this point, with weird shots of a deer giving birth to a dead fawn and a fox disemboweling itself before looking at He and saying “Chaos reigns”. She is using sex to distract herself from her pain, but starts to get weird about the entire thing and wants him to hurt her during intercourse. Some of those scenes can be pretty uncomfortable and the audience started reacting with uncomfortable laughter and fidgeting.
The previous summer She had gone to the cabin with their child to work on her thesis (called Gynocide, about the perception of women as “evil” throughout history) and that was when she first became afraid of the place. Now she is saying things like “Nature is Satan’s church”. Ominous. The movie manages to keep you on your toes the whole time and takes an interesting turn when She appears to be getting better and He starts to lose it a little. But still I found myself wondering why people would ever walk out of the movie. It was almost done and nothing too crazy had happened yet, so those people must just have weak stomachs. Then He reads the coroner’s report and the shit hits the fan.
Turns out she started going crazy the previous summer and tried to hobble their child by putting his boots on the wrong feet, causing slight deformities. When he realizes this She freaks out that he will leave her and starts attacking him, although this quickly turns to sex. The she crushes his nuts with a log, rendering him unconscious, and proceeds to continue masturbating him until he ejaculates blood. And then the movie gets crazy.
It is at this point that what was a tense psychological drama becomes a flat out horror movie, and a very good one at that. It is as though Lars von Trier saw Hostel and said “You think that’s fucked up? Let me show you kiddies how this is done”. I have seen some awful things happen to penises in movies, and really it is hard to imagine anything worse or more painful. Unless you are Lars von Trier. You know what I haven’t seen in a movie? A close-up of an actresses clitoris. You know what else I haven’t seen? A close-up of said clitoris being removed with rusty scissors. Yeah. What better way to show someone’s demented state than to have her circumcise herself with rusty scissors?
So, as it turns out, that is what it takes to shock Roz and me. One of the most interesting parts of the entire experience was watching the changes in the audience and ourselves throughout the course of the movie. At the beginning people are excited and curious, eating their popcorn and sitting up straight. But as the movie goes on people sink further and further into their seats and the sounds of snacking cease. By the final scenes you can actually feel the discomfort in the theatre and hear people squirming awkwardly and events play out onscreen. By the end of the movie everybody, including Roz and me, has sunk as far into their seats as they can and are huddled close to the people they are sitting with. As the theatre lights come back on there are no more sounds of merriment or excitement. People file out of the theatre in silence. Well, except for Roz and I. We cannot help but laugh out loud at our naivete and cockiness going in to this movie. “Shock us!”, we said. Congratulations, Mr. von Trier, you truly are a master provocateur.
WTF+
originally posted May 3, 2010
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