Review of Antichrist

Antichrist (18)

Plot
After the accidental death of their child, a therapist (Dafoe) and his wife (Gainsbourg) � listed in the credits only as He and She � retreat to a cabin in the perhaps-haunted woods to recover. Eventually, they turn savagely on each other and bloody mayhem ensues.

Review
Lars von Trier has joked that he retells one story, about a long-suffering woman and a manipulative man who dooms her, in a succession of genres. Breaking The Waves was a melodrama, Dancer In The Dark a musical, Dogville a small-town exposé. This, evidently, is his horror film.

Antichrist is almost an anthology of nods to earlier horror-art achievements. The prologue, staged in monochrome ultra-slo-mo with operatic score and snowglobe snow (plus hardcore sex), conflates scenes from Don’t Look Now, as a couple are too busy making love to notice their toddler taking a fatal fall. Then, in the ethereally creepy woods, He and She are assailed by nature (acorns pelting the roof like hailstones, fungus/leech growths) as in the undervalued Australian film Long Weekend (the cabin evokes The Evil Dead too). This long, creepy section is the film’s most simple and successful act: deep, dark forests are invested with magic and menace, and the stars (alone onscreen for 99 per cent of the film) deftly reveal how cracked their characters are in jittery domestic rows which foreshadow extreme cruelties.

The mood changes when a fox pauses in the act of disembowelling itself and snarls, “Chaos reigns,” signalling a chapter called The Three Beggars in which the bereft parents are visited by the fox, a crow and a miscarrying deer (anti-Christian opposites of the Three Kings?) and She goes into Audition mode with acts of extreme sexual violence against her husband and herself. It risks gigglesome elements like the talking fox and made-up constellations, before provoking walkouts with video-nasty grue. Dafoe and Gainsbourg are wholly committed, though porn actors or prosthetics substitute for key close-ups. Dafoe inevitably recalls The Last Temptation Of Christ as he undergoes leg-piercing, entombment, stone-rolling and resurrection.

Like vintage Fulci (The Beyond) or Argento (Inferno), it breaks with reasonable storyline and leaves the natural world for limbo. After spending the film with only two characters, the sudden presence of huge crowds in the woods is startling, but more weird than meaningful.

Verdict
A star rating is not much help, since von Trier�s self-conscious arrogance is calculated to split audiences into extremist factions, but Antichrist delivers enough beauty, terror and wonder to qualify as the strangest and most original horror movie of the year.

Reviewer: Kim Newman

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Average user rating for Antichrist

Antichrist

Antichrist contains explicit scenes that are shocking simply for the sake of being shocking. I do admire how it is being seen as it was intended to be seen and hasn't been chopped down by a studio but it does occasionally get pretentious and often becomes timid and boring due to weak dialouge. The film never conveys a sense of it all being meaningful, and by the end you simply don't care because the image of ejaculating blood is engraved in your memory. A shame because this movie could have work... Read More

krisjcummins About me
21:10, 22 January 2010 \| Report This Post




Antichrist

Antichrist contains explicit scenes that are shocking simply for the sake of being shocking. I do admire how it is being seen as it was intended to be seen and hasn't been chopped down by a studio but it does occasionally get pretentious and often becomes timid and boring due to weak dialouge. The film never conveys a sense of it all being meaningful, and by the end you simply don't care because the image of ejaculating blood is engraved in your memory. A shame because this movie could have work... Read More

krisjcummins About me
20:49, 22 January 2010 \| Report This Post




Beautiful Nightmare

It's beautifully shot, and has a great performance by "She" but it's WAY too artsy and kinda disturbing. ... Read More

Andr913 About me
21:36, 15 January 2010 \| Report This Post




warning...

may contain blocks of wood. ... Read More

nukky About me
04:11, 02 January 2010 \| Report This Post




RE: Distressinly Disturbing.
I'm not sure what to make of the little I saw of Antichrist. I probably made a bad decision in taking it out when I did, it was my mates birthday and he's into his horror films so I took it round to his and we were having a few drinks and a laugh. Antichrist lasted 30 minutes before we had to turn it off, just wasn't the right film at the time apart from anything! But I really wasn't enjoying it anyway. I'm never sure what to make on some 'arty' films such as... Read More

lauriedunsire About me
21:44, 01 January 2010 \| Report This Post




Distressinly Disturbing.

From the first fifteen minutes of Antichrist, you know that you are going to go on a horrid and twisted ride that will leave you shocked and distressed. Yes, there are hard-core porn moments and the jaw-dropping acts of violence is something that won't be instanly forgotten. But it's the ending that left me slightly confused and annoyed that you go through a film that was constanly talked about, nearing banning it, then you see it for yourself and think what utter nonsense! Sure the only two sta... Read More

joanna likes films About me
17:05, 30 December 2009 \| Report This Post




RE: Antichrist
Can't say, but still it seems ridiculous to criticize a film for being "artsy". A failed art maybe but for being art? Would you criticize music, books, fine arts like that? I don't like Dali cause it's too artsy? I don't Elliot becuase he is too artsy? ... Read More

Deviation About me
01:09, 10 November 2009 \| Report This Post




RE: Antichrist
Thats what it is though, tryhard artsy. This film would have worked better as a painting than a film... ... Read More

DouglasG About me
01:04, 10 November 2009 \| Report This Post




RE: Antichrist
L: adambatman82 L: harley_quinn went to see this on halloween-not only a waste of money,but a waste of time too. it's indulgent,artsy boring nonsense. the few 'grim' parts only appear that way because they kinda smack you in the face,unexpectantly.the entire movie consists of psuedo-psychiatric therapy dialogue. the whole shock factor is down to theedly real) sex scenesimal torture. a long,drawn-out sex fest with about...10 minutes worth of interesting footage. and ... Read More

Deviation About me
23:31, 08 November 2009 \| Report This Post




RE: Antichrist
L: harley_quinn went to see this on halloween-not only a waste of money,but a waste of time too. it's indulgent,artsy boring nonsense. the few 'grim' parts only appear that way because they kinda smack you in the face,unexpectantly.the entire movie consists of psuedo-psychiatric therapy dialogue. the whole shock factor is down to theedly real) sex scenesimal torture. a long,drawn-out sex fest with about...10 minutes worth of interesting footage. and the movie's dark hea... Read More

adambatman82 About me
21:35, 08 November 2009 \| Report This Post




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