Movie review: Antichrist

Carnagath

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Fans of Lars Von Trier learned a long time ago to approach his films with a specific mindset and very very carefully. In every single one of his projects, the Danish director expects the audience to become personally involved in order to experience them the way that he intended, and such involvement always comes with a heavy price. That's the main reason why practically half of the people who watch Trier's films find them unbearable and are not prepared to become a part of his little experiments. Those that accept the challenge however, get to experience some of the most intense and thought provoking moments that modern cinema has to offer. The difference of opinion between those two categories of people has never been as clear as with Antichrist, a film that instantly generated a massive amount of controversy.




I find the film's title a bit misleading. Antichrist is not really a film about religion, and any references to it are existential and philosophical rather than religious. The Antichrist is the essence of evil, but evil only exists within our own souls. Repressed fantasies, hedonism, fixating dependency on others, guilt, and most importantly fear, fear of the unknown, of the tragedies that may await us in our future, of our fellow man's true intentions, this is the nature of evil that resides in everyone's soul. Our brutal, impure, animalistic subconscious is what makes us human, leads us astray from the "righteous" path and governs our every thought and action. These feelings constantly boil in our subconscious and occasionally erupt with unpredictable results. We are not Gods. We are imperfect. In the end, we are only human. Antichrist examines what happens when those feelings erupt most violently, triggered by loss, grief and desperation.



Von Trier and Anthony Dod Mantle (Slumdog Millionaire) know beauty as well as they know visual poetry. Antichrist's cinematography is nothing short of breathtaking from start to finish, and the more brutal as well as vulnerable and co-dependent the characters get, the prettier the film gets, as if to signify that Nature, the forest, the cabin, the mist, the animals, feed and thrive on the characters's fear and desperation. The film's score is also haunting and drenches each shot with the feeling of a chilling, ancient, passive aggressive malevolence that leaves the viewer insecure and disturbed.



What's even more enchanting than the visuals though is the way the relationship between the calm, patient, over-rationalizing male protagonist and the needy, terrified, guilt-ridden female protagonist evolves from a psychological game of dual support to a brutal homicidal race, as the Dark Side slowly surfaces and starts to poison them both. Several scenes here have been criticized as being overdone and simply present for shock value and have made many people leave the theaters, but I honestly don't believe that is the case. In fact, I'd expect two people that have been completely consumed by their own personal Antichrist to behave much worse, since that is the exact moment when Chaos truly Reigns.




What the film leaves you with in the end is the terrible realization that you have just been forced to take a small peak into your own little dirty soul. Even though this experience is not enough to change a person, it is certainly enough to make you feel content that this most disturbing part of you is safely tucked away, and makes you even more determined to keep it that way. To keep doing your best to contain the guilt, the fear, the loneliness and the realization of your own mortality. After all, you are only human.
 

Lycaeus_Wrex

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Arrrrrgh! I really wanted to read a review of this movie as it's something I'm really trying hard to get to see.

Unfortunately, I feel you delve a bit too far into the psychological motives and intentions of the film, whilst almost entirely excluding the plot. There's a lot sad about the artistic and auditorial direction - which is very well described I might add - but again, very little about the structure of the move itself.

Apparantly this move will force me to examine myself as a human being, that much you have said, but, regrettably, you haven't told me how it will go about challenging my ideals and beliefs about humanity.

Other than that, a good review! :)

L. Wrex

EDIT: Some spelling and punctuation errors.
 

Carnagath

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Lycaeus_Wrex said:
Arrrrrgh! I really wanted to read a review of this movie as it's something I'm really trying hard to get to see.

Unfortunately, I feel you delve a bit too far into the psychological motives and intentions of the film, whilst almost entirely excluding the plot. There's a lot sad about the artistic and auditorial direction - which is very well described I might add - but again, very little about the structure of the move itself.

Apparantly this move will force me to examine myself as a human being, that much you have said, but, regrettably, you haven't told me how it will go about challenging my ideals and beliefs about humanity.

Other than that, a good review! :)

L. Wrex

EDIT: Some spelling and punctuation errors.
Thanks for the input! I really tried to keep the text to a minimum, which is hard because there is just so much that one can write about this movie, so I decided to not use extra space for the plot. It is pretty basic and can be checked out within a few secs on imdb or any cinema guide. I thought I'd stick to the essence of the movie, mainly because of the amount of critics that seem to have completely missed what it is about and reacted in an infuriating way, calling it a porn movie or a boring supernatural thriller (for the love of God). As for the how this movie will challenge you, this is an extremely complicated process that is impossible to fit in a review. It's Trier's magic, the way he manages to crawl under your skin, a combination of pretty much every element of his filmmaking. It no doubt owes a lot to the flawless performances by Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg.

Spelling and punctuation errors: If you can be bothered, please pm me any mistakes you see so I can fix them. I'm always doing my best to improve as a non-native speaker :)
 

Lycaeus_Wrex

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It was an edit about my post, not yours, regarding the punctuation et al. I couldn't find any fault with the quality of your writing. :)

Whilst I appreciate just how difficult it must be to explain the depths of a film such as Trier's - if it's anything like his previous work it's nigh on impossible - even so, I'd try to portray some essence of the basic plot points rather than direct the reader to third-party sites. Whilst a lot of people do read and explore other sources, you can't really use this as an excuse as to why you didn't delve into it.

From a personal standpoint, this may be the first review of yours that I've read fully, and don't let my criticisms, or lack of experience of your writing style, prevent you from saying what you want to, but I expect something a bit more...substantial from a review rather thana critique of the art style of the film in question.

Trying to explain something as deep and complex as a Trier film is no mean feat, and I must say that I do not envy you trying merely to explain what the film is 'about' without sounding at least slightly barmy :)

L. Wrex
 

Pimppeter2

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Loved the review, i should check this movie out


If I could Offer some Criticisms, I feel like you used too many pictures, it makes your review seem immensely short.
 

sneakypenguin

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TsunamiWombat said:
OR...

It's a snuff film.
Yep, one can over philosophize crap but in the end its still crap. In this case some odd meltdown of a director into some sort of pseudo philosophical torture porn.

I doubt i'd call a film with this scene something worth watching.

After knocking him unconscious, Gainsbourg bores a hole in Dafoe's leg with a hand drill and bolts him to a grindstone to keep him from escaping. Then, she smashes his scrotum with some sort of blunt object (the moment of impact happens slightly below the frame). We don't actually see his testicles become disengaged from this body, though it's apparently implied. Next, she brings him to a climax with her hands and he ejaculates blood (yes, it's shown). But that's not all! Later, in an extreme closeup ? lensed by Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle! ? Gainsbourg cuts off her own clitoris with a pair of scissors.
 

TsunamiWombat

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sneakypenguin said:
TsunamiWombat said:
OR...

It's a snuff film.
Yep, one can over philosophize crap but in the end its still crap. In this case some odd meltdown of a director into some sort of pseudo philosophical torture porn.

I doubt i'd call a film with this scene something worth watching.

After knocking him unconscious, Gainsbourg bores a hole in Dafoe's leg with a hand drill and bolts him to a grindstone to keep him from escaping. Then, she smashes his scrotum with some sort of blunt object (the moment of impact happens slightly below the frame). We don't actually see his testicles become disengaged from this body, though it's apparently implied. Next, she brings him to a climax with her hands and he ejaculates blood (yes, it's shown). But that's not all! Later, in an extreme closeup ? lensed by Oscar-winning Slumdog Millionaire cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle! ? Gainsbourg cuts off her own clitoris with a pair of scissors.
I'll get back to you in a few.

My brain is screaming.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH OH GOD WHAT AHHHHHHHHHH >_@ ~bangs head against wall~

Right... I dunno where the OP gets off, but I don't have 'dark fantasies' or an 'inner antichrist' that involves me hurting and maiming and torturing others. The darkest fantasies the occasional erotic horror story invovling a succubus. And if you do, I suggest you A> Seek professional help or B> Kill yourself for the good of the genetic line.

Your inteir philosophical arguement hinges on the idea man is inherently evil and Brutal, and while I feel we are most definatly capable of these things, it only occurs in extreme conditions that unhinge the typical mental state. As pack animals, we instinctivly fight only for dominance or survival, usually. Otherwise it's cooperation. Even in the most heinous of situations, you can find great tales of heroism and selflessness. Vietnam, hellhole of death and suffering it was, even it had SOME positive things to come of it. It's not all shooting kids and burning villages.
 

Carnagath

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I'd rather not join you in judging the movie by copy pasting a scene from it out of context and without having seen it, and I really hate spoilers. But there is a scene right before this massacre that fully explains why the female protagonist is having a total self-punishing breakdown, and it has to do with her deceased baby. I won't say more. Watch it and judge it yourself, or don't.

Right... I dunno where the OP gets off, but I don't have 'dark fantasies' or an 'inner antichrist' that involves me hurting and maiming and torturing others.
Way to quote something I never said and is not even in the movie. Noone is having torture fantasies, but we all have fear of abandonment and we all have guilt, some more and some less. And yes, all people are evil, not in the sense that they enjoy deliberately hurting others, but they are small and petty and in a constant messy struggle against their own urges while trying to keep themselves in line with what is socially acceptable. I don't know, you might be a unique little ray of sunshine, and if that's the case, do stay away from this movie.
 

shogunblade

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I will say I have seen it, and I was absolutely terrified.

I thought your review took it an a real different way of looking at the film. It's obvious using a title like Antichrist with a sort of ambiguity of who or what was Von Trier's idea all along, and it works well, instead of looking for a monster movie like most audiences would with a title like that, it becomes more or less psychologically who or what it is, and makes his audience become more involved, and you said so well within your first paragraph.

I was disturbed, shocked, and disgusted. This movie has three of the most honest emotions a person can give, and to this movie, nonetheless. I can imagine there are torture-porn directors like Eli Roth who would probably give anything to make people feel disturbed and disgusted BEFORE the physical violence starts. This movie delivers it psychologically, and makes it all the better.

I felt like the bloody-graphic scenes were enough for me, and I hope people won't see this movie just because of the highlighted Genitalia mutilation, it far more than that.

Great review.
 

Syphonz

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I once heard something about a scene where they were having sex while it was raining babies. is this true?