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Antichrist (2009)

Director: Lars von Trier

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38 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

Click here to read our interview with director Lars Von Trier

I’ve seen Lars von Trier’s ‘Antichrist’ twice now and experienced such wildly different reactions to it each time that you might want to consider this review as written in sand, not stone. The film is equivalent to witnessing a wild fight between strangers. It pulls you this way and that and convinces you of different versions of the truth. Its provocations repel, while its honesty attracts.

Von Trier never makes the same film twice. Yet once he finds a new theatre for his stories – whether it’s the musical (‘Dancer in the Dark’), the Brechtian morality play (‘Dogville’, ‘Manderlay’) or, as here, the horror movie – familiar ideas come bubbling to the surface. He’s interested in the control of women by men. He’s interested in how power emerges, persists and perverts. He’s interested in how we, as an audience, process these ideas and the emotions they provoke. Discomfort, too, is a well-used weapon in his armoury. He likes to shock, and there are moments in ‘Antichrist’ – not least two featuring genital mutilation – that threaten to mask the film’s serious side. In person, von Trier displays paradoxes that spill over into his work. He’s the reticent artist who thrives at Cannes press conferences. The loner who loves a crowd. The reclusive showman. No surprise, then, that the study of grief in ‘Antichrist’ is quiet and sensitive, while some of the telling is loud and grandstanding.

On the surface, ‘Antichrist’ is a horror movie about a married American couple – he (Willem Dafoe) a therapist, she (Charlotte Gainsbourg) an academic – who retreat into a forest called Eden to work through their grief after the death of their son. The opening, black-and-white prologue is a thing of shallow beauty as we watch this pair make love (with a thrusting shot) as their child falls from a window. This initial slickness will surprise those familiar with von Trier’s down-and-dirty style, although much of the rest of the film is a more earthy mix of greens, browns and blues.

Grief overcomes Gainsbourg, while Dafoe tries not to mix business and pleasure by treating his wife as both patient and lover. He fails. The mood is claustrophobic as we’re stranded with this couple in despair. Some of these early entirely domestic scenes, although piercing in their sadness, drag a little, especially as some of the dialogue feels false. But there’s no doubting the power of Gainsbourg’s performance, nor von Trier’s sympathy for her, as Dafoe insists on dragging his wife through therapy. Nor is there any doubting von Trier’s attitude to Defoe’s trade: he thinks it’s a sham.

The film moves beyond realism when Dafoe asks his wife to imagine ‘Eden’. It’s best to read this as an invitation to a parallel world – a psychological one – as they travel to a metaphorical cabin in the woods. The forest, the cabin, the animals (including a ridiculous talking fox) are familiar horror symbols, but the gender war is pure von Trier. The forest turns on the couple, while the couple turn on each other. The results are so hysterical that what we witness feels most like a piercing primal scream from within von Trier. At some points it feels deeply feminist, at others deeply misogynistic, although the overriding feeling is of sympathy for the wife and antipathy for the husband – plus pessimism about humans in general. Yet there are moments that defy any clear reading. This is a film best viewed with reason switched off.
What can we take away from it?

A troubling but refreshing sense of an artist uncloaked. A violent conflict of ideas and images. A certainty that von Trier loathes therapists. A suggestion that a man can do his worst to a woman and still come across as a messiah. But any logical, unified theory? Any neat conclusions? Any satisfaction from loose ends tied and questions answered? Forget it. It’s just not that sort of film.

Click here to read all our 'Antichrist' content

Author: Dave Calhoun 2009-07-21 11:11:43

Time Out London issue 2031, July 23-29, 2009

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User reviews of this film

Phil Ince said...

Posted on Aug 03 2009 13:30 I was puzzled that this film's accused of being intellectual, pretentious or laughable. It's horrible in places but it mostly seems to be a straightforward film about a couple who might already be mad whose madness then becomes explicit.
There is some comedy early on after their baby's death. The therapist husband dismisses his wife's psychiatrist and the drug treatment although he's unqualified medically to do this; antipathy to psychiatry, professional conceit and perhaps a controlling nature seem to motivate him. He goes on to push his wife into suffering through therapy - encouraging her to experience the most unpleasant things she can think of - and even denies her the comfort of sex because he's now her therapist. She then goes barking mad - bashes him in the crotch with a breeze block, wanks him thereafter until he spunks blood, drills a hole in his leg, attaches him to a millstone and then cuts off her own clitoris. Nothing gory is actually seen but then it’s clear enough without being shown.
The photography is often sensational although the script isn't very coherent - is this a quality of Triers'?, that he doesn't want to make films that resolve?
By the end, the husband seems to be hallucinating, too. The famous talking fox addresses itself (briefly) to the husband and he throttles to death his lunatic spouse in a punitive way that reminded me of Fatal Attraction. There's some confusion in the ending scenes though. At one stage, the wife seems to have buried hubby alive and then exhumes him quite a while later. If the wounds she inflicts on him actually happened, its hard to believe that he'll even hobble away as he does at the end. I do wonder if the bulk of the film is fantasy.
It’s nasty towards the end, brooding in the middle, moving and funny after the tragic start. A 2 star film because it lacks purpose, I think, but has something interesting to ‘say’ at the start and has moments with unique looks.

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Steve Wilson said...

Posted on Aug 02 2009 20:32 This is just drivel, a pretentious mess which has lots of arty bits chucked in to hide what is a work by a complete and utter sexist. As usual Von Trier degrades and tries to shock and as usual he fails, Lets ignore this fool!

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diane said...

Posted on Aug 01 2009 09:40 i think it's funny that people leaving comments about films on timeout which are extreme one way or the other quite often have spelling mistakes, use three exclamations at a time and express themselves in forms such as "if you have different taste than me then you're an idiot", only not so polite. see also the page with comments on 'the hangover'. why do people take the tone that their specific subjective experience of the film gives them the authority to insult people who thought or experienced it differently? the issue over antichrist is probably whether you like 'depressing' films or not; if you don't, you might want to wonder why, when often films which are depressing are that way because the subject matter calls for it. antichrist is aesthetically a beautiful film, charlotte gainsborough is very good in it, there are some flaws to it in it not really being a horror, but more of a psychological drama or tragedy. this last point is probably why people respond in quite extreme ways, because if you're not expecting the sheer amount of attention given to the psychological vilence underlying this unhappy marriage, and want more unexplained blood and guts, then you might feel a bit cheated. It is a bit of a shame that the film is likely to attract people for the sheer shock value they've heard about, the kind of viewer that could take the violence flippantly rather than understand it symbolically.

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Antigoni said...

Posted on Jul 31 2009 20:01 This film was mind blowing. A film has never been made like this before. I am afraid alot of reviews on this site have come from people that appreicate the typical American block buster films. This has wonderful cinematography, mind provoking thoughts, very emotional and powerful. I realy cannot fault it in any areas.

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Josh said...

Posted on Jul 30 2009 14:41 Despite all the over the top, rash comments below this film is worth seeing though- obviously- it will not be to everyone's tastes.
I was one of the offended and bored people after the first hour or so of watching this in the cinema and was tired of the seemingly endless stream of scenes of Charlottes Gainsbourg crying. I thought that the film was pretentious and felt like I was an unwilling participant in an uninteresting psychology lecture. I even couldn't stop myself laughing during a particularly ridiculous scene involving a talking fox.
However, the second half of this film more than makes up for the slow-paced meticulous approach of the first half and von Trier uses the ideas and images that he has set up intelligently. Also, when looking at reviews of this film much seems to be made of the violence and this might be why so many people end up walking out either through disgust or because they were expecting a cheap Saw style horror film; while there are some quite harrowing images in Antichrist, they happen quickly and are usually used to add to the themes being dealt with.
I think this film is brilliant though flawed but I can only recommend it with a degree of caution precisely because it is so challenging and requires thought and attention.

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csfulham said...

Posted on Jul 30 2009 10:48 Sounds like the perfect family outing to me. (I can't imagine why anyone would be interested in seeing this film - it sounds like the most depressing thing on earth.)

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louis kettle said...

Posted on Jul 26 2009 22:40 this film is shockingly bad!!!
and the only people who will say they enjoy this film are pretentious fools who think they are cool and indifferent to like such an appauling film!!

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sophie said...

Posted on Jul 26 2009 21:29 Interesting

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Kir said...

Posted on Jul 26 2009 01:20 Not challenging. Not haunting. Not shocking. Bad acting. Even worse plot. Very, very poor. If something as shoddy as this challenges or shocks anyone then you need to get out more. Just simply awful.

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raz taraz said...

Posted on Jul 24 2009 23:19 ....Not sure where to begin with in criticising this film. It boggles the mind that such a facile, self indulgent, half-baked attempt at film-making coupled with some second rate, half arsed attempt at psychoanalysis, can pass off for a film.
Love the way that some of the reviewers here go to great lengths to attempt to justify or explain what Von Trier is trying to say - to make it meaningful - its beyond farce. I mean the action takes place in Eden for cliches sake! That's as deep as his "symbolism" can be bothered to go.
Its laughable and sad in turns that someone like Von Trier can pass himself off as a serious arthouse director when he is sorely lacking. Its all the more painful that people buy into the lazy attempt at tackling huge human themes with poor dialogue, a few slo-mo effects overlaid with moody opera and some black and white lame imagery. Does Von Trier actually take himself seriously? Apparently, he made the film after a bout of depression. Begs the cliche - he suffered for his "art" and now so must we!
I just feel the more I write about this worthless piece of work, the more credence I give it. So I will finish by saying - wasn't overly shocked by the images that were meant to shock (think I'd reached a state of indifference and numbness brought on by the first hour of the film), felt the subject matters being tackled were far, far too great for the likes of Von Trier's sixth form film theory approach, I laughed mockingly at bits I was supposed to feel some other emotion at and 5 people left the cinema an hour into the film. They were the lucky ones.

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heather said...

Posted on Jul 24 2009 00:00 Squeamish scenes do not a thriller make. Some wonderfully beautiful shots ruined by laughable talking fox (many, many audible laughs in audience - thought I stumbled into Harry Potter), artsy wankoff fumbling storyline and terribly unsexy screw scenes. For 30-something pseudo intellectuals that in '95 thought 'Kids' was a cinematic masterpiece of taboos. Glad tickets were free!

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Eric said...

Posted on Jul 22 2009 07:00 Loved it. Dark and distrubing but never dull. Trier's finest work since "Dogville".
I wonder if the people who commented on the film here have even seen the film, like the Daily Mail critic who dissed it without seeing it, Here's the thing people, you just can't pass judgement on a film unless you've seen it. I live in Sweden and the film has been out for months.

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petey said...

Posted on Jul 19 2009 22:25 Utter garbage, 1 star not great art justa boring rubbish film

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GEr said...

Posted on Jun 21 2009 12:15 The director is either scared of women's sexuality or he thinks it is very dangerous , I certainly the filn "Don't Look NOw" than to this crap

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PS said...

Posted on Jun 20 2009 20:01 Having seen this movie - love it or hate it, it _is_ extremely indulgent. Some films make you think because they suggest a dramatic reorganizations of your thoughts, beliefs, etc., and some make you think because they have decided to make extensive use of their own set of symbols. Antichrist is an extreme version of the latter - much of what I thought was thought-provoking was only so because I had to sit down and try to work out the internal logic of the symbolism involved. Or, in some cases, the lack of internal logic. I will say, that whether or not this is good, it does deserve some consideration as it is clearly deeply heartfelt.

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