Film Reviews

Antichrist

• Rating:
• Director: Lars von Trier
• Starring: Willem Dafoe
• Details: Denmark/Germany/France/Italy/Sweden/Poland / 109mins (18).

As you've probably heard by now, AntiChrist is a vile and disgusting film whose sexual mutilation scenes have got the ban-this-filth brigade vexed. But in truth, there's nothing here that the torture porn horrors like Hostel and Saw haven't done already and AntiChrist's torture scenes are brief. That's not the reason for this reviewer's two star rating, however - it's just too dull.
Gainsbourg and Dafoe's nameless married couple struggle when grieving for their little boy, Nick, who fell out an open window in their apartment. After spending a month in a psychiatric ward, Dafoe, being a therapist, urges Gainsbourg to join him in a trip to their holiday home (ironically named Eden) deep in an unnamed forest in an attempt to confront their grief. While there the couple's relationship is laid bare: Gainsbourg accuses Dafoe of being distant to her and Nick, of not supporting her thesis (on nature's horrific treatment of women), and treating her like a patient instead of a wife. These arguments turn to violence with terrible results.
Although over-the-top and explicit, the sexual mutilation scenes have a right to be there: In a beautifully shot opening sequence, Gainsbourg and Dafoe are in the throes of passion when their son falls to his death, so sex will forever be connected with hurt and pain. Later, Gainsbourg bites Dafoe during foreplay and, even later, begs him to hit her when in the act - sex and violence intertwined evermore. For the rest of the imagery and the psychobabble that goes on, you'd need a doctorate to understand: Von Trier 'treats' us to a bird that eats its young, a deer with a dead fawn half-stuck in its vagina and a fox that tears its own guts out before exclaiming, 'Chaos reigns'. Mmm. Allegedly, Von Trier wrote the script when depressed as a therapeutic exercise. No black dog imagery, Lars?
It's all very heavy-handed and provocative but if AntiChrist can be accused of being flammatory, it can be accused of tedium too. The long, turgid scenes in the middle, where the once natural dialogue becomes aloof and stilted, drags the film down to a snail's pace and it never recovers. It can also be accused of misogyny, but then again this is a Lars Von Trier film and he knows how to push the audience's buttons. He should have pushed them a little bit quicker.

Review by Gavin Burke