Antichrist

Synopsis: After their child dies in an accident, the father (Willem Dafoe as He) and mother (Charlotte Gainsbourg as She) go to an isolated cabin in the woods to work through their pain but things spiral out of control.

Lars von Trier was being treated for clinical depression when he made this confrontational and confrontational film which formed a loose trilogy exploring the crushing effect of the time-honoured Judeo-Christian guilt complex on those brought up beneath its pernicious shadow. There will be also those who dismiss the film as self-indulgent (to say the least) and it is not an easy film in many respects but if you have any interest in film as art it is required viewing.

Although von Trier dedicates his film to Andrei Tarkovsky and there are evident points of resemblance, particularly in the powerfully evocative use of the landscape and the painterly cinematography if there is any director who springs to mind it his fellow Scandinavian director Ingmar Bergman with his profoundly alienated Christianity-informed world-view in which pain and suffering rule and woman is the literal and symbolic embodiment of the destructive and unclean forces of Nature/Life. I can’t say for sure but it seems to me that as far as this film's title goes the Anti-Christ (aka Satan) is She.

Book-ended with a prologue and an epilogue and divided into four chapters - Grief, Pain (Chaos Reigns), Despair (Gynocide) and The Three Beggars - the film follows the story of Her gradual descent into madness as He, a trained psychotherapist who believes that he can cure her vainly tries to reason his way out of their co-dependent cul-de-sac. Visually it is brilliant realized with the prologue and epilogue particularly stunning but the entire film is masterfully shot by Anthony Dod Mantle and beautifully scored by Kristian Eidnes Andersen.

Dafoe and Gainsbourg, who are effectively are the entire cast, are also perfect for their parts. Both actors are known for playing disturbed and/or disturbing characters and their realization of psychic derangement here is extraordinary (be warned, there are scenes of explicit sexual sadism). Dafoe is an actor whose quality of performance relies almost entirely on the quality of his director and he holds back nothing nothing from von Trier here whilst Gainsbourg gives an outstanding performance as the mother and wife torn apart by unassuageable grief.

 

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