542 Antichrist

[Antoine Doinel]

In this Q&A with Von Trier, he sort of confirms that the film will indeed be edited in for the US release. No details on what scene, or if the full cut will turn up on DVD.

[zombeaner]

In this Q&A with Von Trier, he sort of confirms that the film will indeed be edited in for the US release. No details on what scene, or if the full cut will turn up on DVD.

Wow, that is crappy, pretty unexpected to me as well. Given how much of the press for this film so far has been centered around those scenes, you'd think they would leave them in.

[Antoine Doinel]

Ok, so now some IFC insider is saying the film won't be cut.

[Nothing]

A beautiful, heartfelt film, challenging rather than provocative. Occassionally boring or questionable in a temporal sense, but any such quibbles are ultimately rendered trivial. Lars knows exactly how to cut to the heart of the matter, to expose something painful yet true. Cheering, also, to know that he produced this not only out of a depression but out of a period of financial strife; the pressure was on to make something generic, a horror film, and this is what he comes up with - totally uncompromising, only a horror film in the truest sense of the word. And, most remarkably, it seems to have worked - they're lining up around the block! Arthouse cinema reanimated, rather like the fox...

The criticism and focus on the violent imagery, btw, is way over the top. One writer even suggested that LvT should have filmed a real female circumcision instead - missing the obvious moral and practical problems with such a project and also ignoring that von Trier's image instantly brings to mind and protests against this barbaric practice with far greater power than any mealy-mouthed advertising campaign (and intentionally so).

With regards to the Tarkovsky dedication, LvT was undoubtably well aware of the consternation this would provoke but, the real point being, he just didn't care. He wished to dedicate the film to one of his major influences and he did so (there is certainly a lot of Tarkovsky present in the film, visually speaking).

James Gray is a fascist bitch.

[gyorgys]

Artificial Eye announced the blu-ray version with a run time of 104 minutes ( IMDB states a run time of 104 and 109 minutes).

[Fierias]

Artificial Eye announced the blu-ray version with a run time of 104 minutes ( IMDB states a run time of 104 and 109 minutes).

I think it's just an error. The regular, PAL dvd is also listed as 104 min., which I assume is because of the speed-up. The blu-ray should be the regular, non-sped-up time, but just isn't listed as such.

[MichaelB]

It's highly unlikely to be cut in the UK - the BBFC is normally reluctant to interfere with films by major auteurs unless they actually break the law (which clearly isn't the case here), or the distributor requests a milder classification certificate (which also won't apply here). And Artificial Eye is one of the more conscientious British distributors when it comes to presenting work as the director intended.

[Cde.]

James Grey is a fascist bitch.

Do you mean James Gray?
I was disappointed by Two Lovers, but I wouldn't go that far.

[Dadapass]

I think he was referring to James Gray calling Isabelle Huppert a fascist bitch at Cannes.

[Cde.]

Ah. I'd forgotten about that.

[puxzkkx]

This was... um, an experience. It's definitely a remarkable achievement, but there's some awfulness in it too - its definitely like nothing I've ever seen before. I'm still dissecting both the film itself and the feelings it invoked in me, so I'm going to take some time to digest and ponder it before I give my full thoughts.

Some thoughts and questions, though, for those who have seen it -

Spoiler

Was putting the child's shoe on the wrong feet just a sign of latent craziness or something more sinister? At this point my hypothesis is: Gainsbourg's character had been possessed by some sort of demon at one point (maybe the demons that were/had possessed the 'witches' that she was studying) and was trying to groom the child as Satan's heir, and doing the shoe thing was some way of achieving this (the bones of the feet in the X-ray looked like something from earlier in the film, but I couldn't quite put my finger on it). Near the end, with the 'screaming' and with the scenes outlining the 'symptoms of anxiety' (which looked rather suspiciously like she, herself, was suspended in amniotic fluid) I took to represent the possession and the clash between her own personality and her demonic personality, which also explains her somewhat schizo behavior during all the crazy shit in Chapters 3 & 4. But this still doesn't explain why she didn't do anything when she saw her son fall out of the window - I can understand her guilt if the 'normal' personality was there at the time, but if her demonic personality was dominant wouldn't it have wanted to prevent the 'heir' from dying?

[thirtyframesasecond]

I saw it this weekend and like you, am still coming to terms with it.

Spoiler

The prologue is repeated at the end, showing it in a different light. It seems clear to me at least that She watched her child leave his cot and onto his death. She also mentioned she knew that he was capable of doing this. Perhaps she engineered it somehow? I wondered whether her guilt was manufactured, as a means of getting her and He into a position where they can get to Eden. As for the child's 'abuse', the flashbacks indicated She was distracted at least, but possessed? Who knows? Is her revenge against He revenge for women against men across the ages, as shown in the stuff she'd researched? But as He mentions, she was more into embodying the evil that men across history, since the Fall of Man, have accused women of, rather than refuting it. I dunno. There's either more or less to this than meets the eye. Depends on whether you think LVT is trying it on or not. I'd like to read a real in-depth look into the film and the philosophical/historical context. I'm not sure I really want to see it again. That said, I jumped more at the fox suddently jumping out at He than the genital crushing

[zedz]

An extraordinarily silly film, but it was certainly thought-provoking. Unfortunately, the thoughts it provoked were all about why von Trier will never be a major filmmaker, in my opinion. Those considerations come to a head in this film because it marks von Trier’s most serious attempt yet to integrate his early, lavish, ad-agency visual style with the rougher, handheld ‘Dogme’ approach of his more recent works. It should be noted that he integrates the two styles only in the most obvious way (the flashy visuals are used for flashbacks, dreams and visions). Consequently, Antichrist becomes a kind of compendium of his strengths and weaknesses.

In my opinion, those weaknesses boil down to a lack of judgement and maturity. He’s a filmmaker who has consistently come up with innovative stylistic and visual approaches to cinema, but he’s also consistently failed to match up those innovations meaningfully with his content: the randomised camera of The Boss of It All, the disjunctive editing of different performances in Dogville, even the entire ‘Dogme’ rigmarole didn’t really add anything to their respective films, and often detracted from them. And then there are the specific lapses in judgement that shoot their parent films in the foot: those clunky bells at the end of Breaking the Waves; the eye-rolling ‘irony’ of the Dorothea Lange sequence at the end of Dogville; the ‘Three Beggars’ in this film (one in particular). These sequences demonstrate what seems like an immature fear of the director’s message not being understood coupled with an even more immature fear that being concerned with a message in the first place might be seen as uncool, but even as distancing, self-protective irony, they’re handled really clumsily.

Which brings us to maturity. Von Trier’s bad boy persona reeks of arrested adolescence, which would be fine if it didn’t seep into the films. The only thing easier than provoking a movie audience is provoking a movie audience at the Cannes Film Festival, and I see that as a rather meagre ambition, but a large part of Antichrist’s raison d’etre seems to be a chicken run with the torture porn crowd. Can naughty Lars outdo Saw and the like, and can he do it in the context of a self-conscious art film? Well, of course he can, so if this counts as a victory then – uh – way to go, Lars. But you’ve still got 100 non-clitorectomy minutes to fill, so what do you do now? Here’s where the lack of maturity starts to hurt. He’s unable to conceive of real, living characters, so for all that his lead actresses get kudos for their supererogatory masochism, they’re little more than posable Falconetti figurines dutifully occupying their stations of suffering before the final conflagration. This cartoonishness works best in comedy and satire, so there’s much less of a problem with something like The Kingdom, but when you’re attempting a two-person psychodrama, the whole film can disappear into the cracks, even with Gainsbourg and Dafoe doing the best they can.

So, onto specifics. Von Trier wants to have his cake and eat it, so the film is tacitly misogynist while overtly railing against (historical) misogyny.

Spoiler

Gainsbourg has been studying the historical abuse of woman, but, being a mere frail woman, she can’t handle this information and flips out, thus embodying all the sexist stereotypes of the vengeful, castrating woman that the film supposedly decries. Q.E.D.

The plot is a farrago of horror movie mumbo-jumbo (which is generally handled well), psychiatric mumbo-jumbo (banal and functional) and mystical mumbo-jumbo (horrendously fluffed) – oh, and lashings of Biblical allegory (read: mumbo-jumbo). Dafoe was seemingly cast because he’s already ‘done’ Christ, so at the end of the film he gets to takes on the sins of mankind (sorry, make that MAN-kind, for any of the deaf, dumb and blind among you who might have missed the point) and re-relive the crucifixion, entombment and resurrection as a parody, or travesty, depending on your inclinations. But he’s not really a Christ figure. He’s more like the opposite, more of a, more of a - what’s the word I’m looking for here? And for the Biblical scholars with scorecards among you, Charlie and Bill are also Mary and Joseph, and Adam and Eve (there’s this garden, you see, and it’s called ‘Eden’). Unfortunately, the film isn’t as funny as it sounds.

All the same, there are some spectacular sequences in the film, and they’re precision-engineered to be ‘spectacular sequences’. It’s here that you think there must be something von Trier could do that he’d do brilliantly (life insurance commercials? art gallery installations? porn?) There are a couple of very good narrative ideas among the dross

Spoiler

particularly that the big reveal about Gainsbourg is not how or why she flips out, but when

And there’s one moment of what I will gladly acknowledge is cinematic brilliance. It’s not high-tech, or transgressive, or anything so obvious, it’s a simple reminder of the continued relevance of the lessons of Edison, Griffith and Kuleshov, and of the power of montage to transform meaning (here in a particularly chilling way). It almost makes the trudge worthwhile.

[zedz]

I sort of alluded to this above, but to clarify re. the two preceding spoilered posts:

Spoiler

It seemed pretty clear to me that it was Charlotte's research into historical manifestations of misogyny that pushed her over the edge. The indications: the research scrapbook that degenerates into manic scrawls (what a hoary cliche that was!); the initial manifestation of her mania (the shoe thing) during her writing retreat; the direction of her rage and anger towards men (son and husband); the 'medieval' kind of torture she inflicts on Dafoe.

So this means she's been psychotic all along (which was the nice narrative touch I mentioned) and that she allowed her son to die quite deliberately (the brilliant use of montage at the end, where shots we've previously seen are recombined to create a shot-reverse shot pattern that gives a chilling new meaning). This also accounts for her 'exaggerated' sense of guilt and responsibility and the "abnormal grieving pattern" mentioned at the beginning (what a piece of screenwriterese that was!)

I don't really see any support for the possession idea, though it did occur to me, and I think we're supposed to consider it, and I think the 'heir of Satan' idea is definitely a red herring. We don't see enough of the kid to read this into his character (and if poorly-fitting shoes can turn you into the antichrist we're all in trouble!). The title seems to me to refer to the parodic stations Dafoe goes through at the end ('crucifixion', entombment - note the stone rolling across the mouth of the cave, and disinterment / resurrection) - he comes to embody all the repressive authority of the Christian church, burning the 'witch' at the end. So von Trier's message might be that the institution of the church itself became so perverted as to be 'anti-Christian', but Dafoe's character is so sorely provoked that the implicit criticism of his behaviour doesn't carry much water, with or without the vision of ascending womanhood at the end...

[puxzkkx]

An extraordinarily silly film, but it was certainly thought-provoking. Unfortunately, the thoughts it provoked were all about why von Trier will never be a major filmmaker, in my opinion. Those considerations come to a head in this film because it marks von Trier’s most serious attempt yet to integrate his early, lavish, ad-agency visual style with the rougher, handheld ‘Dogme’ approach of his more recent works. It should be noted that he integrates the two styles only in the most obvious way (the flashy visuals are used for flashbacks, dreams and visions). Consequently, Antichrist becomes a kind of compendium of his strengths and weaknesses...

I agree completely with all of this! Except, for some reason, I actually liked it...
Whenever I watch a von Trier film, I bear in mind that he's a compulsive masturbator and has never even been to the USA. Then I form my opinions from there.
I think he has a fantastic talent but he's, yes, far too immature to know how to use it properly.
The messages are heavy-handed, the characters typical 'von Trier' sexist cliches, and the religious imagery way overdone - but I found a lot of the film to be completely breathtaking (even if I was fighting back the urge to laugh at times). I find it to be a very personal 'von Trier' film, as a soppy amateur poem might be really personal to a 'misunderstood' emo 13 year-old. Except in this case it is actually a pretty good poem...

I kind of think it's less sexist than Breaking the Waves (which repulsed me), to be frank

Also,

Spoiler

I didn't find the image of the women coming out of the forest at the end to be a threatening one, you pretty much shot down my possession idea (which I hadn't fully thought out to begin with - although I still have a feeling that those foot bones resembled something significant from the first half of the film) but to me it seemed like the bodies in the forest at the end of Chapter 4 were symbols of the now-vanquished 'evil' of womankind, and the faceless women at the end were 'women set free'... gah. I need to see it again (and next time around I'll probably hate it)

[zedz]

I agree completely with all of this! Except, for some reason, I actually liked it...

Well, me too, really. I don't think I've actually hated any of von Trier's films, and I quite like his schtick in general. Long stretches of this film are dumb as a bag of hair, but it's far from unwatchable, often entertaining, and occasionally breathtaking.

I find it to be a very personal 'von Trier' film, as a soppy amateur poem might be really personal to a 'misunderstood' emo 13 year-old. Except in this case it is actually a pretty good poem...

Well, I had him pegged as a moody sixth former scribbling 'deep and meaningful' scenarios in the back of his exercise book (next to the overworked ball-point pen drawings of evil robots and their pneumatic victims) while listening to The Downward Spiral on his iPod. But these two sound like the same guy a couple of years apart.

[Nothing]

'immaturity' is a charge that often seems to be thrown at artists who fail to conform to the prevailing moral standards of the day. Yet it is precisely Trier's disregard for such standards that makes the film worthwhile - that he is willling to risk the charge of misogyny, for example, in search of a deeper, unfettered truth.

It is interesting, zedz, that you seem to have far greater tolerance for Haneke - a liberal moralist who seeks to shock but is completely incapable of thinking outside the box, whose work therefore never really gets under the skin, never challenges and disturbs in the way that the best of Trier's work is wont to do (if you will let it).

[puxzkkx]

Haneke is a better artist than von Trier, in my opinion. He has similarly creative and political ideas but explores them in a far deeper, more complex and meaningful way, instead of just tossing off 'shocking' ideas and throwing them at the script to see what will stick in the way von Trier does with a lot of his work.

von Trier is very talented, but to get to the best stuff in his films you have to wade through a lot of muck. And there's a difference between "failing to conform to the prevailing moral standards of the day" and self-consciously knocking said moral standards in an attempt to seek notoriety and get stiff upper lips to tremble... the latter is called "attention seeking behaviour"

[Nothing]

self-consciously knocking said moral standards in an attempt to seek notoriety and get stiff upper lips to tremble...

I don't think he's doing that at all, rather, he's simply being honest with himself.

[rs98762001]

Haven't seen Antichrist (or White Ribbon) yet, but I very much agree with Nothing about Trier, and very much disagree with him about Haneke. They are two of the most interesting and fearless directors working today, and even their lesser films have much to recommend them. How someone can say that either, for example, Dogville or Cache fail to get under the skin is completely baffling to me.

[knives]

I liked Cache and thought the razor scene was creepy in that didn't expect it way, put I wouldn't describe it as 'getting under my skin.'

[zedz]

It is interesting, zedz, that you seem to have far greater tolerance for Haneke - a liberal moralist who seeks to shock but is completely incapable of thinking outside the box, whose work therefore never really gets under the skin, never challenges and disturbs in the way that the best of Trier's work is wont to do (if you will let it).

Von Trier and Haneke are pretty much in the same box for me, and in both cases I find what they have to say the least interesting part of their work (and I see von Trier simply as a more confused liberal moralist than Haneke). There are dozens of active directors whose work I find more rewarding and original.

[Tommaso]

Being back from the cinema for two hours now, I'm not sure whether I should post about this film already. Nevertheless, re-reading this thread has already helped me to sort out my thoughts a little, but I'm not sure whether it will help me to get my mental composure back any time soon (in other words, I very much feel like Ebert in his article that is linked to here some pages before this one, and I actually have to agree with almost everything he writes there). This was certainly one of the most impressive and frightening films I've seen for quite a while. I still feel completely drained, disturbed, but also somehow feel the joy that you can have when you've seen a film that completely baffles and engages you, regardless of the subject matter. I'm not sure whether I would call this a masterpiece yet, but I'm sure I just saw a truly striking film that invites very few comparisons.

I can't agree with zedz when he says that von Trier isn't able "to conceive of real, living characters"; this may be true about the Dafoe character, but not of Gainsbourg's, and is quite deliberately conceived in this way. Especially the first two chapters of the film I found to be an absolutely believable study of a person's descent into depression, probably driven into it even more by the husband's (unintentional) psychic cruelty towards her and his complete lack of understanding for a mental state he cannot control. But then this slightly Bergmanesque study in depression morphes into something entirely different.

Spoiler

The 'trick' is that von Trier apparently seems to say that that mental state very closely reflects the spiritual and material 'making' of the world (and thus indeed the references above to gnosticism and the demiurge seem much to the point), and for me the point of the film is that the Dafoe character has to realise this in the course of the film. In other words: He – in a much more socially accepted way – is as 'mad' as She; both cannot come to terms with the unrelenting cruelty of the world: he uses rationalism as a way out, she 'opts' for psychosis; both of course are inadequate ways, but then: who would have a better way to cope with the world if it was really created in such a way as the film seems to indicate. In the end, both have to give in to the violence and destruction that governs nature: the acts of violence are rather equally distributed, and Dafoe crushing the bird in the foxhole is only slightly less shocking than Gainsbourg's grindstone routine. "Chaos reigns" indeed, though I'm not sure whether it really needed the fox to tell us that (though this and other scenes, especially 'The Three Beggars', reminded me favourably of Neil Jordan's "The Company of Wolves").

In these respects, the film is deeply nihilistic and depressing, and while the moments of extreme violence surely make an impact (though I didn't find them necessary in this form), the real impact comes from the unrelentingness with which von Trier drives home his points throughout the whole film. I also don't think that the film is misogynistic, though it is clearly directed against those who believe that the problems of (human) nature can be solved by academic disciplines like psychology or 'politically correct' gender studies. In my view, von Trier in spite of his 'bad boy moments' tried to make a dead serious, and more importantly, an honest film, regardless of whether it was self therapy or not at the beginning.You don't have to agree with von Trier's world view (I certainly do not), but the film has the power to totally involve you emotionally in its line of thoughts, its images, and most of all I'm sure it has the power to make you think about it for a long, long time (just about the only quality it indeed shares with Tarkovsky). There are not many films from the last ten years I would say this about; "Inland Empire" may be the only other one, and that of course is an entirely different kind of beast.

Sorry if I rambled too much...I'm just very impressed and still feel slightly unbalanced by that film.

[eltopo]

DVD RC2 - Gutek Films (Poland):

Run time 104:00 Min.

[Ted Todorov]

My reaction to Antichrist was similar to The Killer -- the first John Woo (or any) ultra-violent film I saw. At first I recoiled, but a some point I had a clear impression that my foot was being pulled -- between the slo-mo, over the top violence and silly, operatic melodrama. While during the post screening Q/A Dafoe kept bringing up Tarkovsky (who was also mentioned in the credits) I kept thinking of Woo.

I actually found Antichrist much easier to take than Dogville & Manderlay precisely because it was so over the top.

Frankly the least risible film Von Trier ever made was The Five Obstructions