542 Antichrist

[Tribe]

The official website has some gorgeous stills........and a shot of Lars Von Trier with a dead bird.

Any news on whether the bird met the same fate as the donkey in Manderlay?

[Antoine Doinel]

[Matt]

Zalman King's Anti Christ. Looks like something that went straight to video (which is pretty much what happens to von Trier films in the US these days).

[domino harvey]

The film begins with David Duchovny walking along the ocean, reading from the Bible

[John Cope]

LOL. I wish.

[James]

Reuters report on Antichrist from Cannes.

[John Cope]

More on this.

Maybe it will grab the Palm after all. Wouldn't that be great?

And Roger Ebert weighs in with appropriately hysterical hyperbole. Fun to read though I take issue with the idea that Dogville and Manderlay were boring.

[Antoine Doinel]

Dancer In The Dark also got booed at Cannes. Frankly, I would be more concerned if Von Trier hadn't pissed people off. The reports above have just made me want to see the film all that much more.

["membrillo"]

He is still "numb"

[Tribe]

Reuters dispatch today on Antichrist:

Danish director Lars von Trier elicited derisive laughter, gasps of disbelief, a smattering of applause and loud boos on Sunday as the credits rolled on his drama "Antichrist" at the Cannes film festival.

The film, starring Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg as a couple seeking to overcome the grief of losing their only child, has quickly become the most talked-about at this year's festival, which ends on May 24.

Cannes' notoriously picky critics and press often react audibly to films during screenings, but Sunday evening's viewing was unusually demonstrative.

Jeers and laughter broke out during scenes ranging from a talking fox to graphically-portrayed sexual mutilation.

Many viewers in the large Debussy cinema also appeared to take objection to von Trier's decision to dedicate his film to the revered Soviet director Andrei Tarkovsky. Applause from a handful of viewers was drowned out by booing at the end.

Antichrist opens with a heavily stylized, black-and-white, slow-motion portrayal of the child's accidental death set to soaring music by Handel.

Dafoe's character, who is a therapist, tries to help his wife deal with her grief and encourages her to come off heavy medication that sedates her for weeks after the death.

They decide to go to an isolated wooden cabin in an unspecified forest to recover, but the woman Gainsbourg portrays loses control of her senses.

The abuse she submits herself and her husband to drew shocked gasps from the audience.

The reaction suggested that von Trier, who won the top prize in Cannes with "Dancer in the Dark" in 2000, could be in for a rough ride from reviewers and journalists on Monday.

One U.S. critic said he and others found the film "offensive," and questioned why it was included in the main competition of 20 films in Cannes.

In production notes for Antichrist, the 53-year-old director said that the movie was a "kind of therapy" for depression he was suffering from two years ago.

"I can offer no excuse for 'Antichrist' ... other than my absolute belief in the film -- the most important film of my entire career!"

[kaujot]

[ . . .] the most important film of my entire career!

Doesn't he say that about every new film of his?

Regardless, I always love reading reviews of his films. He brings out the worst in people.

[FerdinandGriffon]

And Roger Ebert weighs in with appropriately hysterical hyperbole. Fun to read though I take issue with the idea that Dogville and Manderlay were boring.

Don't read this unless you want some serious spoilers. I didn't, and now I'm a little peeved as Ebert didn't have anything insightful to say either.

[Nothing]

One U.S. critic said he and others found the film "offensive," and questioned why it was included in the main competition of 20 films in Cannes.

I agree entirely, how dare they program a film by a real auteur instead of more industry products like Fish Tank and Taking Woodstock. Deeply offensive.

[Jeff]

The reports from all over are that Von Trier has lost his mind (again?), it was the most vicious reception ever at Cannes, an unmitigated disaster, etc. All of this, of course, only makes me want to see it more. Roger Ebert's rather spoilery synopsis and analysis is a hoot:

Spoiler

The film involves a couple, He and She, whose infant child falls out a window and smashes to the pavement while they are making explicit love. They feel devastating grief. He, a psychologist, takes She off psychotropic medications, and they go to live in their secluded hideaway in the forest, a cottage named Eden.

He subjects her to probing questions and the discussion of the Meaning of it All, which must affect her like a needle to an inflamed tooth. Oh, He is quite intelligent and insightful, and brings passive aggression to a brutally intimate level. Then she wounds him, and while he's unconscious she used a large woodscrew to drill a hole through his keg and bolt a grindstone to it. He drags himself into the forest and tries to hide in an animal burrow. She finds him, and pounds him with a shovel to force him deeper. Then she tries to bury him alive.

What does this metaphor (with a Prologue, an Epilogue and Four Chapters) mean? The dinner conversations all over town must not have been appetizing. Some read it this way: Perhaps the world began with man evil instead of good, guilty instead of innocent. That the Garden of Eden was visited by the Antichrist, not the Lord. That man's Original Sin was not eating from the Tree of Knowledge, but not vomiting forth knowledge and purging himself.

All for this will be discussed at great length. What can be said is that von Trier, after what many found the agonizing boredom of his previous Cannes films "Dogville" and "Manderlay," has made a film that is not boring. Unendurable, perhaps, but not boring. For relief I am looking forward to the overnight reviews of those who think they can explain exactly what it means. In this case, perhaps, a film should not mean, but be.

[domino harvey]

This film may indeed prove to be terrible, but it's not like many modern movie critics would know art if they saw it, especially Roger "2 1/2 Stars For Pierrot le fou" Ebert

[Antoine Doinel]

I mentioned this in the Cannes thread, but Dancer In The Dark was booed at Cannes, as was Dogville so I'm not sure what the surprise is here. Von Trier has always divided critics and audiences pretty definitively - you either love him or hate him. I think it's heartening that Von Trier is still garnering this kind of reaction to his films this late into his career. Even if the film is a "disaster", it will undoubtedly be one of the most interesting ones by any filmmaker in a while.

[Jeff]

I see now that my previous post was duplicating stuff already posted in the Cannes thread, so I've moved them all over here to avoid further confusion.

I can't wait to read Von Trier enthusiast Mike D'Angelo's take in tomorrow's A.V. Club report. His Twitter indicates that he is suitably confounded.

[Antoine Doinel]

MCN rounds up some more of the critical feedback so far:

"I am of roughly 17 minds on this quite possibly virtually literally insane psychological thriller."

"As if deliberately courting critical abuse, the Danish bad boy densely packs this theological-psychological horror opus with grotesque, self-consciously provocative images that might have impressed even Hieronymus Bosch, as the director pursues personal demons of sexual, religious and esoteric bodily harm, as well as feelings about women that must be a comfort to those closest to him."

"Ingmar Bergman meets Saw"

"It’s not often that you leave a movie and feel like you’ve just experience a moment in cinematic history. Antichrist, which premiered Sunday night at the Cannes Film Festival, made me feel that way."

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

It's weird, but reading all this I can't help but think how great it would be if Barmy were at Cannes.

[knives]

He'd have fallen asleep at least three times. As for the film, the reception definitely has me jazzed. With Cannes I don't take the verbal reactions with much thought, but the reviews do paint it as something I'd like and I would like to see some horror Von Trier (only have seen Boss of it All).

[domino harvey]

Perhaps you'd like to see some, oh, Von Trier Von Trier as well?

[knives]

That's what I meant by horror actually. My impression is that Most of his work could be described as horror.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

He'd have fallen asleep at least three times.

So a rave review, then

[colinr0380]

It is also a little rediculous that the audience seemed to take offence at trying to channel Tarkovsky, since he has been paying homage at least since The Element of Crime (and Images of a Relief is kind of a Conformist/Tarkovsky mash up). I suppose this is just the first time he has officially 'outed' himself as being so influenced, so to speak.

[jbeall]

Associated Press basically repeats the last ten posts.