ANTICHRIST Directed by: Lars Von Trier Cast: Charlotte Gainsbourg, Willem Dafoe Running Time: 1 hr 50 mins Rating: NC-17 Release Date: October 23, 2009 (Limited)
PLOT: After the sudden loss of their son, a married couple (Gainsbourg, Dafoe) with a strained relationship seek healing in their cabin in the woods.
WHO'S IT FOR? This horrifying film is likely to gain some sort of following, despite having a narrow appeal that demands art house audience members to watch images that would disturb even the most grotesque fare of mainstream Hollywood.
EXPECTATIONS: At the same festival that gave Gainsbourg's performance an award for Best Actress, audience members were apparently throwing up and passing out. Other than hearing this, I had nothing but the bold title of ANTICHRIST to tempt me.
SCORECARD (0-10)
ACTORS: Charlotte Gainsbourg as She: An incredible amount of passion pours out of Gainsbourg in this performance, which is always at full force, especially when she is naturally realizing the anguish a mother feels at the loss of her child. She is practically possessed by the insane vision of writer/director Lars von Trier, offering an embodiment of fear, despair, and pain that transcends just "acting." This is certainly not the lovable Charlotte from My Wife Is An Actress. Score: 10
Willem Dafoe as He: As equal a team player as Gainsbourg, his character is constantly trying to break down her seemingly indecipherable anxieties, something that seems to strain their relationship even more. Dafoe is commendable as the attempt at sanity, but is certainly upstaged by the absolutely brutal performance of his on-screen wife. Score: 7
TALKING: Despite having made past films in various different languages, this is a von Trier film that is strictly in English. Most of the dialogue is delivered in bits, and certainly takes a backseat to film's desire to explain its theme's visually. Score: 5
SIGHTS: The solace offered by the gorgeous prologue and epilogue is squashed by the film's dark lighting. This is only the beginning, however, as the climax of the film has some absolutely disgusting imagery that had me squirming for days after. Score: 7
SOUNDS: Heaven and hell are represented by the choice of “music” in the film. The angelic melody of Handel’s “Lascia chio piangia” is featured in the aforementioned prologue and epilogue. Such peacefulness in the music is then abandoned, as for the rest of the film ANTICHRIST shakes the theatre’s subwoofers with what sounds like the wallowing of monks roasting inside all of damnation. Score: 9
PLOT SPOILERS
BEST SCENE: The prologue. With its graceful slow motion and black and white cinematography, it's a captivating five minutes that sums up what most of the experience of ANTICHRIST would be like.
ENDING: Hell is other people.
QUESTIONS: What exactly does that ending mean?
REWATCHABILITY: Now that I have moved beyond the anxiety of what happens next in the film, I could certainly see it again.
OVERALL
ANTICHRIST is the closest I will ever come to experiencing hell. It grabs hold of the viewer with an astounding slow motion and black and white opening, which might as well be how a modern version of Dante’s “Inferno” would look. The film then slowly creeps its fingers over our souls for the first two acts, tugging us along with inconclusive observations of fear, despair, and pain, all accompanied by a mélange of unusual images that only heighten our own anxieties. The hands of ANTICHRIST then grab the audience by their throats, and forces them to experience with an unblinking eye horrifying images that could only be witnessed in such an abyss of pure darkness. Close-ups of cinema’s most disturbing shots in years force us to feel the film's pain, leaving the audience crippled by the same madness that plagues the two characters. Our souls have been destroyed just like the “survivor” of the chaos that reigns throughout. Until we realize that ANTICHRIST is not a state of mind but still a film, we are dazed by its darkness.
Lars Von Trier, or rather, the rage of Lars Von Trier, has crafted a cinematic experience of complete wickedness that will paralyze and repulse, but because such a film as evil as ANTICHRIST exists, it is a force to be reckoned with.
FINAL SCORE: 8/10