The new offering from Lars Von Trier is unlike anything you’ve yet seen, but more to the point it’s unlike anything that you would ever want to see.
It is a pity that most viewers will see the long-awaited «Antichrist» by Von Trier knowing of most of the controversial scenes that caused immediate controversy at the world premiere at this year’s Cannes festival. Apart from these and the limits of the grotesque and uncomfortable feeling on leaving, there are few things we could use to justify a film that finds the Danish author indulging ultimately in vanity. More provocative and big-headed than ever … Re-writing the history of battle of the sexes from scratch and focusing on a couple just after the death of a young child, Trier sends Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe off to a cabin in the woods and the start of a nightmare that will not stop until it has exhausted every residue of tolerance and patience the viewer may possess. Walking a tight rope between straightforward thriller and psychological drama, the Antichrist is an unnecessary disclosure of the director’s psychological agenda. Catholic guilt, sex as a forbidden fruit, sacrifice, the woman as the demon, the man as the victim, all the usual elements that have led to Trier’s name being etched in gold letters in the history of modern film, yet here all overblown to the extent that if you take the structure of the movie seriously it is simply sick and dangerous yet if you allow it to be viewed as comedy it still only plays out as an exercise in kitsch. Deliberately provocative on its intent, «Antichrist» betrays even those who consider Trier to be untouchable. Without any specific aesthetic vision behind the impressionist images, without any philosophical background behind the moral of the story, and ultimately nothing more than a talking fox, a mutilated foot, a penis that ejaculates blood and clitoral mutilation in sharp focus. Things that no one needs high art to enjoy, appearing already as they do in countless films that you’ll find in a grubby heap in the corner of the video club.
The «Antichrist» by Lars Von Trier will play in Greek cinemas from the 1st of October.
