Antichrist

By now, you’ll have probably heard of Antichrist, the new film from Danish director Lars von Trier, much hyped in the media of late for its sadistic violence, graphic sex and wilful aim to piss off as many people as possible. Many critics have questioned von Trier’s motives for making this film, and most have concluded that it’s a wind-up; that he’s no more than a provocateur, a mischief-maker. It’s hard not to agree.

The story itself isn't particularly controversial. Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg play a couple, credited only as He and She, whose young son dies after falling out of an open window while they’re making love in the room next door. This first section of the film, the prologue, is stunning: presented in soft monochrome, unravelled in super slow motion, underscored with a beautiful Handel aria. It’s the prettiest thing von Trier has committed to film (well, in this case, digital video), marred only by the brief yet needless shot of a phallus about to hit home. (An aside: despite most things being considered OK for inclusion in films these days, the erection essentially remains persona non grata, and is still somewhat surprising, and slightly off-putting, to see on the big screen. Von Trier certainly has previous in this regard – see his 1998 film, The Idiots – and you feel he’s throwing in all his favourites here.)

While Gainsbourg’s character, the wife, is completely traumatised by her grief, fainting among the funeral cortege and being admitted to hospital and prescribed medication, Dafoe, the husband, remains strangely calm, inscrutable and dispassionate. He’s a psychotherapist by trade, and sees this as an opportunity to persuade his wife to face her darkest fears. He asks her which place she is most frightened of, she tells him Eden; their secluded hideaway in the woods, a place she once went with their son to finish her thesis on gynocide, the killing of the female sex.

The couple return to Eden and the husband begins his attempts at therapy and healing, with varying degrees of success. The film gets stranger and stranger as von Trier slowly reveals what happened when the wife first came to the cabin, and her terror at the possibility of her husband leaving her. Eden seems to have driven her almost to madness; she talks of listening to falling acorns crying, and hearing their son screaming from somewhere deep in the forest (despite him being sat only metres from her). The husband finds her study materials, sees the gradual deterioration of her handwriting, proof that her mind was, and still is, fuelled by her terror and obsession.

Having been caught up in the hype before the film was released, I couldn’t help but sit in anticipation of the moments that already seem to have gained their own infamy. One such scene features a bloodied, computer-generated fox turning to Dafoe and slowly uttering the words ‘Chaos reigns’, its voice gruff and demonic. The idea of the fox, von Trier has claimed, stems from a vision he had while meditating – which may be true – but it’s something of a bizarre distraction in what is, up until then, a bleak, solemn and intense film (albeit one with frustratingly terrible dialogue and, at times, drama-school-level acting chops). But, despite its darkness, what this film doesn’t need is comic relief, so you can’t help feeling von Trier’s thrown the fox in for laughs: his own. (I have to admit, though, it is quite funny.)
The fox is one of a number of creatures that makes an appearance: there’s a doe with its young hanging out of her in its amniotic sac; a crow that survives a pretty savage beating (yes, a beating) from Dafoe; all of whom lend some significance, albeit esoterically, to von Trier’s frankly bewildering backstory. Yet the most animalistic behaviour is reserved for Gainsbourg, who mutilates herself and her husband in pretty sickening and unbridled fashion: legs pierced with iron bars, balls bludgeoned with two-by-fours, and a clitoris scissored off altogether. Although Antichrist has been marketed as a straight horror film (despite the antagonistic poster), I’d wager that it’d turn the stomachs of some of the Saw/Hostel/Midnight Meat Train goremongers, something that von Trier is likely to have aimed for all along.

But is that wrong? Is it acceptable for von Trier to take us all for a ride in this, his vehicle for pouring forth his misanthropy and disappointment in the human race, a film that, due to his depression, he wasn’t too enthusiastic about making? How should we feel about it? One thing’s for sure: the uproar’s misguided, the brouhaha from the likes of the Daily Mail is sensationalist, the hype is OTT and unwarranted. Antichrist isn’t pure evil, isn’t overly controversial, nor is it going to drive our children to copycat behaviour, playground shootings or acts of terrorism. No, it’s a film made by a known firebrand, a rabble-rouser, a guy whose last three films passed by with little more than a whimper (despite being among his best work) and who was always going to get our attention this time round. Whether that should be a filmmaker's primary concern is another question entirely.