Lars von Trier’s latest feature film, Antichrist, has the distinction of winning the first and thus far only “anti-award” at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, merited by it being “the most misogynist movie from the self-proclaimed biggest director in the world,” according to the festival’s Ecumenical Jury.
Needless to say, critical response was divisive.
I recently had the pleasure of watching Antichrist, though I must impress that I don't mean "pleasure" in the general sense of the term. Antichrist is thematically provoking, well-shot, incredibly well-acted and, to boot, an homage to the works of Ingmar Bergman and Andrei Tarkovsky (the film actually being dedicated to Tarkovsky’s memory in the closing credits). But it is also an ordeal.
Antichrist follows a nameless couple overcome with grief in the wake of their young son's death, the toddler having climbed out a window as they had sex in the next room — an operatic, black and white opening sequence set to Handel's "Lascia ch'io pianga." She (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is a doctorate student, so traumatized her guilt has turned into crippling anxiety; He (Willem Dafoe) is a clinical psychologist, subtly domineering and perceiving their shared grief as a treatable syndrome.
In this mode, He suggests exposure therapy, having the two of them travel to a cabin in the woods — ironically called "Eden" — where She feels the most vulnerable in order to confront her fears head on. Almost immediately after stepping foot in the forest, the couple is subjected to steadily worsening torment at the hands of nature: the ground burns, acorns pelt against Eden's roof on a nightly basis, and a self-mutilated fox tells Him that "chaos reigns."
Despite its title, Antichrist is not your ordinary religious film. Though its themes of guilt and venial sin have their roots in Catholic theology, nearly everything else —from its forested setting to the elemental influence of nature —is distinctly pagan. The male-dominated nature of the former conflicts with the female tradition of the latter, and roughly two thirds of the way through Antichrist becomes an intensely fascinating piece about gender politics and suppression, taking form in Her increasingly erratic thesis on the subjugation of women, entitled Gynocide, that He discovers in the cabin's attic.
And this is when the film gets controversial, suggesting that, following months and months studying the repression of women, She has become convinced that her gender is inherently evil. This notion triggers her husband's concern as well as the film's incredibly violent climactic act that, I admit, made me flinch and turn away at several moments. Von Trier depicts acts of mutilation so explicit it makes anything in the Saw series look tame, but to his credit this torture serves as more of a means than an end, embodying the themes of gender persecution he has developed throughout the movie.
I will be utterly clear: this movie is not for everyone. I jokingly describe it to friends as "art house Evil Dead" but it's not a traditionally entertaining piece. It requires dedication, thought and a measure of endurance from the viewer, and I will again impress that the final act consists of roughly forty minutes of two people doing utterly horrible things to each other. Otherwise, von Trier knows what he's doing. Experimental? Sure. Controversial? Oh, no doubt. But Antichrist is will stand as a significant and hotly-debated film for years to come, and if one of the points of cinema is to provoke than it certainly succeeds.