Antichrist

4.5 Stars

Despite its volatile reputation and the thunderous din of critical and moral outrage from the international film community, Danish troublemaker Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist descends upon Australian audiences, surprisingly devoid of the hysteria that has accompanied its release in other territories.

An abstract, confounding film that both its admirers and detractors will label classically ‘arty-farty’ , Von Trier’s shock-and-awe dissection of grief, feminism and psychosis has been passed with an R-rating without any excisions by the Australian Film and Television Office; bravo to them for this broad-minded approach to confronting material.

When word gets out about the images Von Trier subjects his audience to, it is inevitable some sectors of society will call for its removal from cinemas, amongst them probably some religious crusaders and definitely some female activists. Come to think of it, reps from the RSPCA, DOCS, NIDA and the big hardware store chains might all find aspects of the film far too vile to sit through without expressing outrage. We can only hope the film’s supporters are equally impassioned in its defence.

Antichrist is structured as a thesis on suffering, with a prologue, four chapters and an epilogue. We are introduced to He (Willem Dafoe, who never seems to age) and She (the extraordinary Charlotte Gainsbourg) during the prologue, enjoying slow-motion, monochromatic and graphically-penetrative sex. They fail to notice their toddler son, who finds his way to an open window in the midst of a majestically-cinematic snowstorm and falls to his death.

Utterly consumed by grief, She lapses into a month-long coma; He comforts himself from an intellectual standpoint, applying his training as a psychotherapist to both his healing and her state of mind. They retreat to their country home, Eden, set deep within the woods, to recover in isolation. The cabin is beautifully rustic and almost appears to be a natural formation, growing out of the dense foliage; this is the first hint that the forces and laws of nature are totally in control this far from civilisation and sanity.

The chapter headings are Grief, Pain and Despair, symbolised by three familiar denizens of the forest – ‘Grief’ is a deer, labouring through the undergrowth with a still-born fawn dangling from its hindquarters; ‘Pain’ is a fox, which He finds in the ferns, eating its own innards and speaking the prophetic phrase “Chaos reigns...”; and ‘Despair’ is a crow, buried in the dirt and shrieking for survival. Collectively referred to as ‘The 3 Beggars’, the animals are synonymous with legends of the centuries-old practice of gynocide – the culling of young women, as detailed in the pages of She’s unfinished thesis, which litter the cabin; the beggars infiltrate the home and minds of He and She with fateful consequences.

The emotional pain is evident enough on the faces and in the contortions of the actors, especially Gainsbourg, whose skeletal body and drawn face is both beautiful and heart-breaking in equal measure and who earned the Cannes Best Actress award for her fearless portrayal. But Von Trier’s mission is to imbue his audience with more than just an understanding of his characters pain; the director needs for you to experience the helplessness of their despair as well. The opening sex scene, some fumbling but fully-realised couplings that help He and She dull their grief and a wildly-vigorous self-abuse/masturbation sequence will leave audiences shocked, but the most confronting and controversial scenes in the film have yet to unfold. 

(Ed. – This paragraph contains graphic spoilers). The audience is subjected to a passage of unrelenting brutality approximately 75 minutes into the film that is unlike any this reviewer has seen. Overcome with rage and guilt, She bashes her husband’s genitals with firewood then masturbates him to a bloody climax; as he lays unconscious, she drills a hole in the calf muscle behind his shin and attaches a millstone, preventing his escape; he drags himself into the woods, only to be found and buried alive; She relents, digs him free and drags him back to the cabin, where she performs an excruciating act of genital mutilation upon herself.   

Lars Von Trier has created a true horror film, but one steeped in the psychology of suffering, dedicated to the exploration of love and pain as one, equally nourishing and destructive. The themes, cinematic devices and underlying darkness of this extraordinary work reflect the best films from the likes of David Lynch and David Cronenberg (whose films Crash, 1996, and Dead Ringers, 1988, share a blood-soaked vision of sexuality-by-way-of-pain with Antichrist).

Cries of ‘misogynistic torture-porn’ and walkouts amidst booing and jeering greeted the film when it premiered at Cannes this year. There is much to support the argument that Von Trier, who has openly admitted to filming Antichrist whilst in the grip of a fierce, post-separation depression, is dealing with some disturbing views regarding the female influences on his life (a point his ever-vigilant detractors will say also influenced past works such as Breaking the Waves, 1996, and Dogville, 2003).

But critics can’t expect to have it both ways. We deride the lack of bold visions and confronting themes in world cinema today, yet a film like Antichrist comes along and there is a backlash against its artistry, complexity, ambition and ambiguity just because it contains moments that deeply shock. Patrons sickened by the films visuals will get no arguments from me – Antichrist is a hideous film in parts and its excesses will not be to everyone’s tastes. But Lars Von Trier demands a lot from his audience (not to mention his poor actors); by accepting the Antichrist challenge, you will emerge feeling exhausted, filthy and abused, but also invigorated, stimulated and stronger.